


I Ain't the Love You Thought I'd Be

by justkisa



Series: Vegas [2]
Category: Football RPF, MCFC RPF
Genre: Adultery, F/M, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justkisa/pseuds/justkisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gareth had a secret. Now he doesn't. All he has are the pieces of what used to be his life. So he tries, fails, and tries some more to put it all back together as best he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Ain't the Love You Thought I'd Be

**Author's Note:**

> 1) This is a sequel to [Just Pretend Now](http://archiveofourown.org/works/451478) and, while it stands alone to a certain extent, it will probably make more sense if you've read [Just Pretend Now.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/451478)
> 
> 2) While this story uses [Still Looking Up](http://archiveofourown.org/works/571349) as back story, I don't consider this a direct sequel to that story. It's more like one possible future that it could have lead to. 
> 
> 3) The Barrys' children appear in this story. So if that's something that bothers you in fic, please be advised that they are a significant presence in the story.
> 
> Warning: Internalized homophobia.

When Gareth finally makes it home after the parade, he’s so shattered he’s not sure he’s even walking in a straight line. He doesn’t remember feeling this way after last season’s parade. Louise meets him in the front hall. She looks him over. “You look wretched.”

“Ta,” he says, “for that.”

She laughs and comes over to give him a quick kiss. “You hungry?”

“Could eat, I suppose.”

She kisses him again. “Go. Shower. I’ll make you something.”

“Can’t I just--” 

She pushes him away. “Shower first.”

He dips his head and sniffs his shoulder. “What? You saying I stink--”

“Shower,” she says as she heads for the kitchen. 

It takes him an age to make it up the stairs. He sits down on the bed to take off his shoes and doesn’t feel much like standing back up. He’s only just managed to get his shirt off, when Louise comes in. “Gareth, do you--” She stops.

He can’t think why. “Lou?” He looks back at her. “What?” She’s staring at him; there’s something not quite right about her expression. “What?” he asks again. 

“Gareth.” She sounds utterly shaken and he doesn’t understand why.

“Lou?”

“Did you-- Gareth, what did you--”

“Lou, what?”

She closes her eyes. “Did you,” she says slowly, “last night, did you-- What did you do?” She opens her eyes. “What did you do?” 

He’s completely lost. “I, uh, we went out, you know that, and when you left I--we just, you know...” It seems ages since she’d left him to go home, even though it was just last night. He remembers kissing her goodbye, halfway to pissed already, and telling her not to wait up. She’d laughed, he remembers, kissed him again and said, _as if you’re coming home_. He hadn’t. 

She comes across the room. “What,” she says, laying her hand on his back, “did,” she digs her nails into his back and it hurts, more than it should, like she’s pressing into a wound--a scratch--and it all makes sense, “you do?” She drags her nails along the scratches. He remembers, suddenly, the sharp, unexpected sting of them, but he hadn’t cared about the pain, that he was being marked, not then, because, _because_ \-- And he should have cared. “Was it,” she says, her voice wavering, “some girl, did you, what did you do, Gareth?” 

“I--” His memory of it’s a mess, blurred and fuzzy. He remembers snatches, here and there, strange moments of clarity, but, mostly, he remembers heat and the slide of skin on skin, the taste, salt and bitter, like sweat and one too many shots, and desperate, out of control kisses. And he knows where he woke up.

“Don’t,” she says, digging her nails in harder. “Don’t you dare lie to me, Gareth Barry, I won’t have it.”

He closes his eyes. He thinks about lying, not about cheating, but about who with. He can’t. “It was Joe.” It’s odd, to say it out loud. There are no words with Joe. It’s not something they talk about, not even when they’re together, because it’s just a thing they do sometimes, when they’re pissed, nothing more. It’s not a thing to talk about. It’s not anything at all. He doesn’t even think about it, not if he can help it, not unless Joe’s there under his hands. “I’m--”

Louise interrupts, “Joe? _Joe Hart_?” She steps away, her nails scraping across the scratches again. Gareth turns to face her. “You’re telling me, you and _Joe_ , that you, my God--I--” She stutters to a stop and puts her hands over her mouth. Her eyes are bright, but she’s not crying. She’s staring at him though, like she’s never seen him before.

“It was just, we were pissed and--” They always are. He gets half out of his head and he forgets that Joe’s not his to touch, that he shouldn’t be anywhere near him, or anyone that’s not Louise. “I’m sorry, Lou, so fucking sorry, I didn’t--” He’d gone home with Joe, he’d-- He remembers being in a cab, street lights flickering past as they rode through the mostly deserted city, Joe sliding his hand up his thigh and he hadn’t cared about anything but that, because they’d won, _hadn’t they_ , and he’d been so pissed and he hadn’t cared about anything but getting his hands on Joe. In that moment, he hadn’t cared about her or-- “I,” he says, because he doesn’t want to remember more, because thinking about it with her standing right there, crumpling before his very eyes, is making him sick with shame and he can’t bear it, “I--I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.” 

“I--” She swipes her hand across her eyes. “I--I just need--” She turns and walks straight out of the room.

He doesn’t move. He remembers the rest, blurred and quick, flashing through his mind, leaving a sick, sour taste in his mouth. He swallows, but the taste lingers on his tongue, acrid and sharp. She knows now. He’d never really let himself think about her knowing, because that would mean acknowledging it was happening at all and he’d never-- 

He doesn’t know what to do now. She’d cried. He’d _made_ her cry. He doesn’t know what to do to make it right. Doesn’t know where to start. 

The scratches on his back throb and it’s easier to focus on that, on the pain. He reaches over his shoulder and runs his fingers over the scratches. His fingers come away smeared with blood. She’d torn the scratches open. He stares at the blood, for a moment. It’s not a lot, just a bit, smudged across his fingertips. He feels like there should be more. 

He goes into the bathroom and washes the blood off his fingers and cleans up his back as best he can because it’s something to do. He doesn’t turn on the light; instead, he stumbles around in the dark because he doesn’t want to see himself in the mirror, is too ashamed to look himself in the eye.

He goes back into the room to put his shirt back on. Louise’s sitting on the bed. She’s staring at the floor, but she looks up when he walks in. “I want,” she says. Her voice is rock steady. “You to leave.” 

It’s like everything stops, like he’s somewhere outside himself. “You what?” 

She’s staring straight at him. He can tell she’s been crying, but she isn’t right now. “I want you to leave,” she says again.

“What, now?” It’s all he can think of to say.

She shakes her head. “No. In the morning. You’ve that golf thing, right?”

“It’s not--” 

She cuts him off, “I know it’s not for a few days, but I-- Gareth, I--” Her voice breaks and she looks away. “I just need some time to--to think. I-- You’re going to give me this, Gareth. It’s not--not for good. It’s just a few days. You’re going to do this.” 

“Okay,” he says, because it’s all there is to say. She can have whatever she wants. “I’ll go, ah, in the morning. Say goodbye to the kids and all.”

She nods. “Right. Of course.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, “so sorry.”

“Yeah,” she says, “so you said. Could you--could you just go. I, ah, I made one of the guest rooms.” 

“Okay.”

She sighs. “Just go, Gareth, please.”

He goes, leaves her there, her head in her hands. 

He doesn’t bother to get undressed. He flops down onto the bed and stares at the ceiling. It takes a long time but, eventually, he falls asleep.

***

In the morning, he makes the calls to rearrange his flight and get a room for an extra night. When he says his goodbyes to the kids, Louise barely looks at him. She walks him to the door, though, and says, without looking at him, “You’ll, ah, you’ll call the kids, right?”

“‘Course,” he says. He _always_ calls. He doesn’t know why she’s asking. “Lou, what--”

“Okay,” she says, shrugging, “Just, I-- Okay.” Then she turns and walks away without saying goodbye. He stares after her and watches her until she turns into the sitting room.

In his hotel room in Spain, there’s nothing to do except stare at the walls and think about what he’ll do if, when he goes home, Louise says she wants to leave him. He tries to imagine his life without her, without the kids, because she’ll take them, of course she will, and he can’t imagine it, because they’re - her and the kids - they’re the biggest and best parts of his life. 

After supper, he calls the kids and tries his best to be upbeat, to laugh in all the right places and be properly attentive. Freya tells him that Grace’s mum’s taking her and Grace to see some movie that he vaguely remembers hearing about. Oscar mostly complains about his schoolwork and talks about how he’d really much rather play outside. It’s all so typical, so _ordinary_ , and he almost, for a few minutes, forgets to be worried, can almost pretend that everything’s normal. 

After he hangs up, though, and he doesn’t have their voices right there in his ear, there’s nothing to stave off reality, so he opens the minibar and drinks until everything hazes out and he can’t remember what he spent all day worrying about.

In the morning, his head aches and he’s sure going golfing’s the last thing he wants to do, but he has some tea, plasters on a smile and goes to meet Milly at the course. 

He’s glad, in the end, that it’s Milly along with him. Milly’s quiet and steady and doesn’t talk to him about anything but golf. He doesn’t seem to mind that Gareth’s not really in the game. He just gives him some stick about his swing and, when they’re done, he buys Gareth a drink. 

He always feels a bit weird drinking with Milly. He switches to Diet Coke after the first drink. “Do you want,” Milly says, after awhile, “to maybe get some dinner or something?” 

Gareth’s not sure he can make it through a conversation without golf for a distraction. “Nah. M’shattered. Just gonna go up. Get something sent up.”

Milly smiles. “All right, mate.” He claps Gareth’s shoulder. “Next time.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says, standing up, “Next time.” Milly’s looking at him like he knows more than he’s saying. Milly always knows more than he says and he keeps his mouth shut. Gareth almost sits back down, almost opens his mouth and tells Milly the whole thing. It’s just a momentary impulse, though. He doesn’t. “See you, yeah?”

Milly nods. “Yeah.”

When he calls the kids, he says to Louise, “Can I, can we talk, after?”

“Sure,” she says, then she hands the phone to Freya.

“Well,” she says, when she comes back on, “talk.” Her tone is curt. He misses the way she usually sounds.

“I, uh, I wanted to ask if it’s all right for me come back to the house?”

She’s quiet for a long time. “Well,” she says, finally, “You’ll have to, won’t you, to get ready for Euros and all.” It’s not quite the _yes_ he was hoping for, but it’s not the outright _no_ he’d feared.

“If you don’t,” he says, “want to see me or--I could come when you’re out or something, get my stuff.” He wants to say sorry again, but he’s not sure she really wants him to. 

She sighs. “You may as well come back to the house. The kids--” Her voice shakes a bit. “They miss you.”

“I miss them too,” he says hurriedly, “and you too, Lou, I--”

She cuts him off. “Don’t, Gareth, not right now. Just--just come to the house. We should, there are some things we should talk about.”

“Like what?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” is all she says.

Later, he can’t fall asleep. He keeps thinking about all the things Louise might want to talk about. He dozes off eventually wondering what he’ll do if Louise, his Louise, who is the very foundation of everything he is, says she wants to leave him. They’ve been together since they were kids, so long that he can hardly remember what it was like to be without her. He’s not sure he _can_ be without her, but he’s not sure he knows how to convince her to stay.

***

When he gets back, the kids’ energetic greetings mask the awkwardness between him and Louise. They all have dinner together. It’s like any one of countless other family dinners, except when he hands Louise the bread and his fingers nudge hers, she almost drops the bread.

He puts the kids to bed. He lingers with them, fusses until Oscar rolls his eyes and says, “Enough, Dad.” He ruffles his hair and kisses him again. “Get off, Dad, come on.” He wants to stay, watch him until he falls asleep. If Louise leaves, she’ll take them. He’ll see them now and then, maybe they’ll come to some matches, he’ll get them in the summer. He doesn’t think he can bear it, being separated from them like that. He goes back and looks in on Freya. She’s already asleep. He goes and kisses the top of her head, gently, so as not to wake her. He goes and stands in the baby’s room. He stays there for a long time.

When he goes back downstairs, he finds Louise in the kitchen. She’s standing in front of the sink, but she’s not doing the dishes. She doesn’t turn around when he comes in. “Lou?” he says softly. She turns around. “So,” he says, because the silence between them is too unsettling, “Uh, what--what did you...” She stares at him and the silence stretches between them. He waits.

“Is this,” she says finally, “are we, me and the kids, I mean, are we truly what you want? Is this--did you, you know, because we--we aren’t--”

“No,” he says, “No. You, the kids, you’re everything. This--this is what I want. I love you Lou, you and the kids. I--”

“Okay,” she says and she slumps a little, collapses in on herself, “Okay.” She pauses then straightens back up. “I’m not,“ she says, each word sharp and precise, “going to leave, Gareth. You--you’re the father of my children, you’re--you’re still--” She turns away and her voice blurs. She’s crying and he aches to touch her, soothe her, but he doesn’t move. “Still, the man I-- I’m not leaving but we--” She takes a deep, shuddering breath and turns back to him. “We’re going to have to work this out.”

“Okay,” he says, unable to keep his desperate relief out of his voice, “Okay. Whatever you want, Louise, anything, you want, okay?” 

She scrubs her hand across her face. “Right now, I think, I want to get some rest. I think it’d be best if we wait until, after, you know, Euros and all?”

He wants it to be now. He wants to fix this now. He’s unsteady on his feet without her, without the way things always are, but he promised her whatever she wanted. “Okay.”

“I, uh, I left the guest room,” she says, “Go. Get some rest.” Her tone softens a bit. “You look awful.” 

She goes, skirts past him without touching him, and leaves him with the dirty dishes.

***

He spends most of the days after that with the kids, tiptoeing around Louise. She barely looks at him, hardly speaks to him. It’s like being in the house with a stranger.

When it’s time to get ready to go to Euros, it’s almost a relief, anything to get out of the house. 

He’s just finishing up his packing, when Louise slips into the room. “Did you,” she says, leaning against the door, “remember enough socks?” It’s so mundane, so _normal_. It’s the best thing he’s heard in days. 

“Yeah,” he says, “think I’ve got enough.” 

The corners of her mouth tip up in what might, at a stretch, be called a smile. “Good. Know you hate it when you run out.”

“Yeah. Lou--”

She holds up her hand. “Let’s not.” She sounds tired, looks it too. He wonders if she’s sleeping as poorly as he is. 

“Okay,” he says. 

She crosses her arms over her chest. “I wish,” she says, looking down at the floor, “that I could ask you to stay away from him, to never see him again, but I know I can’t, not really. But, Gareth, _stay away_ , not, you know, just--” She pauses and looks up, looks straight at him. “Gareth, this is your only chance. Understand? One chance. If you, if it happens again, it won’t be like this. Understand?” 

He nods. He’s almost too relieved to speak, but he has to say something. “Yeah,” he manages, “I, of course, I understand.”

She comes across the room and touches his shoulder. It’s a light touch - she’s barely resting her hand on him, but he feels like she’s wrapped herself around him, feels her touch through his whole body. He stands perfectly still under her hand. He doesn’t want her to take it away. “Good luck, Gareth,” she says and pats his shoulder. She takes her hand away and turns to go.

“Thanks,” he says, “Lou--” She looks back at him. “Take care of yourself, yeah? Don’t--Have your mum come, or Emma, just take care of yourself.”

She smiles a little. “I’ll--I’ll try,” she says and walks away. At the door, she turns back and says, “Don’t forget the charger, for--for the phone, you always--we don’t need another.”

He’s always forgetting it, always has to buy a replacement wherever they are. “I’ve got it,” he says, “put it in first thing.”

She nods. “Okay. Okay. That’s good.” Then she’s gone, closing the door carefully behind her.

***

When he sees Joe on the training pitch, Joe spreads his arms wide and says, “Gaz, you don’t call, you don’t write, you go off golfing with _Milly_ ,” with a cheer that sounds, to his ears, forced.

“Hey!” Milly says. 

Joe waves him away and keeps going. “M’starting to think the love is gone.” That word, love, it hits Gareth like a physical blow. He actually steps back. Joe drops his hands to his side. “S’joke, Gaz, eh?” he says, voice going quiet, smile sliding away, “Gaz?”

Milly’s chattering loudly at Joleon, waving his hands, distracting everyone. “Yeah,” Gareth manages, “‘Course. Right.”

Joe claps his shoulder and smiles a little. “So, you okay? Didja kick Milly’s ass at golf?”

He has to tell Joe, that’s all he can think, has to tell him that Louise knows, has to explain that they--

Joe nudges into him. “Well, didja?” Joe’s stayed close, his shoulder brushing against Gareth’s. And it always starts out this way, a simple touch, innocent, Joe’s shoulder against his, or his arm around his shoulders. But then it lingers, turns into more, Joe pressing close and not moving away, him pushing closer to Joe. He’s always told himself, it’s just mates, isn’t it, being close like that, just something you do sometimes with your mates. It isn’t, though, is it? It’s something he does with _Joe_. 

He steps away, because he can’t, he’d promised Louise, he has to stay away. Even a simple touch like this, it’s too much. He has to stay away, has to tell Joe what’s happened. “Nah,” he says. His mouth’s gone dry. He swallows. “I, uh, you know, I never do win against him.”

“Next time,” Joe says and slings his arm around Gareth’s shoulders. He’s always doing that, Gareth’s never thought about it, until a moment ago, but he is, he’s always touching him. Gareth’s gotten used to it. He likes it. He seeks it out. He-- “C’mon,” Joe says, “We better get going. They’re starting.” 

He shrugs out from under Joe’s arm. “Yeah,” he says, “go on, then,” and walks away before Joe can say anything more. He’s never been gladder that keepers do most of their training separately. 

He tells himself he’s going to tell Joe, get it done with, but instead he sits in his room trying to figure out what to say. Nothing he can come up with seems quite right. Then he starts thinking, maybe he shouldn’t tell him, not now, he should wait until after Euros. This isn’t the kind of distraction Joe needs. He could just wait, just avoid Joe and tell him later. It’ll be better, he tells himself, if he does that. This isn’t the place for it, they’re here for football, not, well, not whatever it is that’s between him and Joe.

It feels the right decision until the moment he calls home and hears Louise’s voice.

He means to stay away from Joe after that, but it doesn’t work out that way. He tells himself it’s better that, if he stays away, Joe will want to know why and he doesn’t want to tell him why. It’s easy, being around Joe, who’s ignorant of what’s happened, who thinks their secret’s still a secret. He’s all smiles and banter and it’s easy to get caught up in that, to pretend, for a while longer, that everything is as it’s always been. 

Then, at night, when he Skypes or talks with the kids and sees Louise or hears her voice, he tells himself the next day will be different, that tomorrow he’ll stay away from Joe, _tomorrow_ he’ll keep his promise to Louise and stay away, but he never manages it.

***

He comes off against Norway, after being on for what seems like no time at all, and he has a feeling it’s bad, worse than anything he’s faced recently. The feeling doesn’t go away the next morning, when he sees the physios and has a scan - something about the way they’re looking at him, the careful vagueness of their answers.

In the end, they tell him they’re sending him back to City, so the club can check him over and decide what comes next. He doesn’t ask about going to Euros, and they don’t mention it. It doesn’t matter. He knows the answer. He isn’t going anywhere but home. 

When he gets back to the hotel, he sits on the bed and looks at all of his things laid out. He’ll have to pack, should really be doing so already. He has to call Louise, let her know he’s coming back. He decides to do that first, get it over with.

She’s slow to answer, picking up just before voicemail would kick in. “Gareth?” she says, “Is it time for you to-- Did I--”

“Lou,” he says, “No. M’not calling for the kids.”

“Gareth,” she says, wary and tired, “I--”

“Lou,” he says, interrupting, “I, uh, I’m injured, against Norway, I-- They’re--they’re sending me back to the club. M’coming back home.”

“Is it, _oh_ \--” She sounds worried and, despite everything, that almost makes him want to smile. “Gareth, is it, I mean, is it bad?”

“It’s, uh, s’bad enough.” 

There’s a pause, then she asks quietly, “Euros?”

“No,” he tries to say, but his mouth’s so dry it doesn’t come out right. He clears his throat and tries again. “No. Don’t think so.”

“Oh, Gareth,” she says, her voice low and full of sympathy, “I’m so sorry.” He wants to wrap himself up in the sound of her voice, to glut himself on her sympathy. 

“I, uh, thanks.”

“So,” she says and all the warmth and sympathy is gone, “You’re coming back?”

“Yeah,” he says. The rest of the call is brisk, all business and details.

After he hangs up, he sets about packing. There’s something almost soothing about the routine of folding and sorting and packing. He can lose himself in the details of it and not think about anything else. 

He’s staring at his mostly packed suitcase with the vague idea that he’s forgotten something, his charger, maybe, or his blue jumper - he’s rubbish at packing without Louise there to remind of the things he’s always forgetting - when someone knocks on the door. He goes to the door, still trying to figure out what he might have forgotten. It’s Joe, and he pushes into the room without waiting for an invitation. “So, Gaz, what’d they say? Are you--” He stops when he gets into the room then he says, “You’re leaving.” It’s not a question. He’s staring at the bed where Gareth has his suitcase lying open. 

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m going. They, uh, they’re sending me back, ah, so the club can, you know...”

“Is it, shit, Gaz.” He sounds worried, looks it too, looks oddly young and vulnerable. “How bad is it?” he asks, ducking his head and peeking up at Gareth. 

“Dunno,” he says, “Guess we’ll see.”

Joe looks down at the floor. “Euros?” He sounds so hopeful.

“Nah,” Gareth says, “Don’t think so.”

“Shit.” Joe looks up. “M’sorry, mate, that’s-- Sorry.” 

He wants to take Joe’s sympathy, wallow in it a bit, but he can’t. He can’t take things like that from Joe. Not anymore. He can’t get close, has to stay away, disentangle himself from Joe. “Yeah,” he says, “Well, it’s--it’s just what’s gonna be.”

Joe steps forward, gets close, and he should step back, discourage what’s coming next, but he doesn’t. Joe wraps him up in a careful but close embrace. He can’t move. He just stands there, stock still, intensely aware of Joe’s closeness, the familiar scent of him, the feel of him. He doesn’t _want_ to move. It’s a startling revelation, the intensity of his desire to be close to Joe, even though he shouldn’t, even though he’d promised he’d stay away.

It should be over, _done_. It has to be, because otherwise he’ll lose Louise, his family, and he can’t be without them, he knows that, knows that losing them would be like having his heart torn out of him, but still he wants to wrap around Joe, hold onto him and revel in his closeness. After this, he thinks - he’ll take this, and then, after this, nothing more. Joe says with quiet surety, “You’ll be back next time, eh, Gaz? It’ll be just like always.”

It won’t, not just for football, but for everything, but Gareth fists his hand in Joe’s shirt and lies, “Yeah, sure, Harty, ‘course. Next time.” Then he pulls back and says, “I, uh, I’ve got to finish up. So, uh--”

Joe smiles. “Right. Sure.” He claps Gareth’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself, eh, Gaz?”

It takes an effort, but he manages a smile. “Yeah. You, uh, you too, eh, Harty?” 

Joe lingers at the doorway. “Don’t,” he says, “forget your phone charger. It’s--it’s just there on the dresser.”

Gareth turns to look. He knew he was forgetting something. “Thanks,” he says, “I’ll, uh, I’ll get it.”

“‘Kay. Guess I’ll see you, then?”

“Yeah,” he says. It is, at the very least, literally true. “See you.”

***

When he finally gets home, it’s late. The house is dark except for the sitting room. He finds Louise there, curled up on the sofa, book in her lap. When he walks in, she looks up. He wants, more than anything, to go to her. He craves the soft comfort of her body against his, the solace of her touch. “Hello,” she says, putting the book down on the side table.

“Can I, uh, mind if I sit?”

“Go ahead.” She pats the sofa. “Sit.” He sits as close to her as he dares. “I’m sorry, Gareth,” she says softly, “truly.” She pats his knee, then leaves her hand splayed across his thigh.

“Me too,” he says. 

He’s not sure how long they sit there. He’d be content to sit there all night, still and calm, under her hand and in her presence but, eventually, she says, “Think I’m going up.” She pats his knee. “Get some rest, Gareth.”

***

He spends most of the next day at Carrington being poked and prodded and scanned. At the end of it all, they tell him he might need surgery, but they’re not sure yet, and then they send him home. He gets home just as the kids are coming back from school. They’re excited to see him and it’s a nice distraction. Louise just says quietly, “All right?”

He shrugs. “Later, yeah?”

He spends the afternoon with the kids, to give Louise a break, but mostly because he’s missed them. He puzzles out Oscar’s homework - at least, well enough to help him. He plays a game with Freya. It’s nice. 

Supper’s filled with the kids’ excited chatter and it covers up Louise’s unsmiling silence. When the kids are finally tucked into bed, he goes to find Louise. She’s in the kitchen, sitting at the table, staring at nothing. “Well?” he says. 

She glances at him. “You just gonna stand there?”

He sits down across from her. “So,” he says, when it becomes clear she’s not going to say anything, “You, uh, you wanna know about what they said earlier or, uh, you know...”

“Tell me,” she says, without looking at him, “what they said about the injury.”

“They, uh, they’re not sure yet, but, uh, they think, maybe, I might need surgery.”

She looks up. “Surgery? S’that bad then?” 

He shrugs. “Dunno,” he says, “Maybe.”

“Right,” she says, looking back down at the table, “Well, I--I hope not.” Her tone is flat, there’s no concern in her voice, like she’s saying the words without really meaning them. He’d been hoping, selfishly, for a little more concern, some sympathy, something like last night, when she seemed genuinely sorry about his injury; this, though, is maybe more what he deserves. 

She doesn’t say anything else and the silence stretches between them until he can’t bear it any longer and says, “Lou, do you wanna talk about, well, you know...”

She looks up again and stares straight at him. “Okay,” she says, “Let’s talk.” He doesn’t know what to say, where to start. She raises her eyebrows. “What?” she says, “Nothing to say, Gareth? _Fine_. I’ve plenty to say.” She pauses, and he waits. She looks away again. “So,” she says, her voice suddenly small and almost timid, “You--you like men, I mean, you’re--you’re attracted to them?” 

It’s not where he expected her to start. “I--” It’s flustered him. He’d been waiting for recriminations, for her to ask him _how could he?_ He wasn’t expecting this. “No,” he manages, “I mean, dunno, s’just Joe, really. I’ve--” He’s never considered it, never _let_ himself, because he’s not-- It’s not men, it’s _Joe_. He’s spent so much time convincing himself that Joe’s an aberration - that what they do is just something that happens sometimes when they’re pissed - that he’d never even bothered to think about it that way, never cared to look that closely at just what wanting Joe the way he does means. 

_It’s just Joe_ , that’s what he tells himself, _just Joe_ , it doesn’t mean anything beyond that, doesn’t mean he’s-- “S’just,” he says, because it’s the only thing he’ll accept, the only thing he can say, “It’s only Joe.” 

She looks back at him. She looks almost surprised. He wonders what she’d expected him to say. “Okay. All right,” she says slowly, “So, you just, you what?”

“We were pissed, I--I made a mistake and I--I’m so sorry Lou, I didn’t-- I know I hurt you, that I-- But I’m so, so sorry.”

“A mistake?” She sounds calm, calm enough that Gareth knows she’s really angry. She’s never calmer than when she’s spitting mad. “You got pissed and you what? Just--” She scrubs her hand over her face. “And the next time you get that pissed, are you just-- Has this happened before? I mean, Gareth, I just, I don’t know what to think, what to do.” She stops and stares at him, obviously waiting for an answer.

The truth isn’t an answer he wants to give. It’s going to make this worse. It’s going to hurt her in ways he hasn’t yet begun to hurt her. He’s never thought too hard about this part, never thought it through, because he’s always known how wrong it is, how deep a violation it is of Louise’s trust, of her love. But he’d wanted Joe, badly, even if he could barely acknowledge it, so he’d done it anyway, pretended each time that it was the drink, that it was just a casual one-off between mates, that it wasn’t important, that it wasn’t anything at all. He’d told himself it didn’t matter, that none of it mattered, like it existed somewhere else, somewhere far away from Louise, from their life together.

“Gareth?” He knows his silence is damning him, but he can’t bring himself to speak. He can see the moment when she realizes the answer for herself. “It has.” It’s not a question. “How many times, Gareth?”

“Lou. Lou, do you really--”

She cuts him off. “Tell me.”

He has to think, to count up the moments. Wonders, does the fumbling kiss, which’d ended up going nowhere, in that narrow corridor in the back of that club that Joe loves but he can never remember the name of, count? What about the one in Vegas, the one he can’t remember, or the other one in Vegas, when Joe kissed him and he pulled away before it went anywhere. Maybe they do, but he leaves them out. “Dunno,” he says slowly, “Eight, maybe, nine times.” 

Her eyes go wide and she pushes back into her chair, like she’s trying to get away from him. “You--” Her calm is shredding now, giving into a kind of desperate pain that scrapes, harsh and unforgiving, across his skin. “You, with eight or _nine_ , Gareth, _Gareth_ \--”

“No. No,” he says, rushing to interrupt her, “It was only Joe.”

She stares at him. “Only Joe,” she echoes, her voice hollow, “Only Joe. Is that-- What? Is that,” her voice breaks, “supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. No, of course not, just--”

“Just what, Gareth? You’re fucking Joe, you’re--” She’s crying now, but he’s not sure she’s noticed. “Did you,” she says, scrubbing her hand across her eyes, “Gareth, tell me, did you use, I mean, _Gareth_ , tell me you did. _Please_. At least that. Tell me.” She sounds desperate, almost panicked. 

“I--” The memories are all a jumble, fevered and blurred, because he’d always been pissed, every single time, so pissed and-- “Mostly,” he says, feeling sick, “I--I think, mostly.” He’d never even thought of this, never even-- “ _God_ , Lou, I--”

“You _think_?” She’s sheet white. She’s stopped crying and she’s staring at him like he’s utterly devastated her. 

“I--” he starts, thinking to say he’d been so pissed he can’t remember, thinking to tell the truth, but he stops. It won’t serve any purpose save to hurt her. “I’m sorry,” he says instead.

She looks away. “You’re _sorry_? Gareth, _my God_ , you’re--” She stops. “How could you?” she says. Her voice’s gone so quiet. She’s still not looking at him. It’s the first time she’s asked him that. He doesn’t have an answer.

“I--”

She looks back at him. “We-- Gareth, we don’t and-- _How could you?_ ” 

There’s no good answer, he knows, nothing he can say. “I’m sorry, Lou,” he says, “So sorry.” 

She stares straight at him and says slowly, “Sorry isn’t going to fix this.”

“I,” he says, “Lou, I know but I _am_ sorry, so sorry.” 

She stares at him a moment longer, then she puts her head in her hands and says, voice a bit muffled, “You’ll--you’ll have to go and, you know, get--get tested and--and the like, Gareth, you’ll, _God_ and I’ll...”

“Joe’s not--” He says, reflexive and automatic.

She looks up. “ _Oh?_ ” she says, sharp and scornful, “You know everyone he shags, then? Don’t tell me you thought it was just you?”

“No, I--” He stops. He’s never thought of it, really, didn’t bother. What Joe does isn’t any of his concern.

“‘Course not,” she snorts, “Right. Well, you’re going to go. Never mind what you think of Joe bloody Hart.” 

“Right,” he says, “Okay. I’ll-- Of course, I’ll-- Lou, I’m sorry, I’m--””

“Enough,” she says, cutting him off, “I can’t--” She stands up. “You’re _sorry_. You’re-- I can’t. Enough of this. I have to-- I’m--” She’s gone before he thinks to try and stop her. 

He waits, head in his hands, waits for her to come back. He almost expects her to, for it to be like before, for her to come back and ask him to leave again. She doesn’t, though, she doesn’t come back. That’s worse.

***

The days after that are a kind of stilted farce. They stumble through their normal routines, the kids acting like a buffer between them. She doesn’t talk to him unless the kids are with them. Without the kids, she won’t stay in the same room as him. He leaves her be and tries to be grateful that she hasn’t asked him to go, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

He goes to the doctor. There’s a cold humiliation in explaining to the doctor why he’s there. He can barely get the words out, can barely stumble his way through the explanation. The doctor’s blank-faced and professional about the whole thing and that, if anything, makes the whole experience worse.

***

The day of England’s first game, she says, “Are you going to watch?” and it’s the first thing she’s said, just to him, in days.

“Yeah, ‘course.”

He watches alone. The kids don’t care and Louise, well, maybe under other circumstances she might, but not now. He forgets, while he watches, gets caught up in the game, in the excitement of Joleon’s goal and the disappointment of Samir’s. Joe absolutely gives it to his defense after that. He’s right to, Gareth thinks; they’d gotten in his way. There are no more goals and it ends in a tie. Gareth feels wrung out from watching - knowing he can’t do anything to help, it’s more exhausting than playing. 

He gets up, leaves the television on, and goes to get something to drink. Louise is in the kitchen, putting together dinner. “So,” she says, when he comes in, “how’d they do?”

“Draw,” he says, getting himself a glass of water, “Decent result.” He takes a sip of water. “Joe,” he adds, before he thinks, “he had a decent game.” Her mouth tightens and she turns away. “Just say it,” he says, tired of the silence between them, of waiting endlessly for the end to come, for her to yell and scream and throw him out of the house, “whatever it is you want to say to me.” 

She looks back, stares straight at him. She’s never been one to hide. He wants to look away, but he owes her this - and so much more. “I worried some, you know,” she says, “about girls, about-- But, _God_ , never did I ever think that--that you’d...” 

“I’m sorry,” he says. He’s lost count of the number of times he’s said it, but he means it every single time. 

“Were you,” she says, still staring straight at him, “sorry every time, Gareth? Did you stop and think of how sorry you were before you did it again and again and--”

“I,” he interrupts, “I told you, we were--”

“No!” She raises her voice for the first time. “No. I won’t have you lying to my face.”

“Louise, I’m not--”

“No,” she says, quiet again, “No, Gareth, not now.” She turns and walks away. He lets her go.

He goes back and half listens while the pundits pick apart the team’s performance. He wants to call Joe, tell him the goal wasn’t only down to him, wants to make sure he’s okay. He calls Milly instead. If Milly’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. He’s not sure Milly’s ever really surprised by anything. “Heya, Gaz.”

“Hey.” He knows he should ask after Milly, but instead he blurts, “How’s he doing?”

“All right,” Milly says, ‘You know how he gets.” He pauses then adds, “You should call him.”

“Yeah,” Gareth says, “Maybe later. I’ve--I’ve got to--”

“Yeah,” Milly says, “okay.” 

Gareth hangs up without saying goodbye.

Later, after dinner, he offers to do the washing up. Louise smiles, just a little, and says, “That’d be nice. Thanks.” He knows that he can’t make it up to her with things like this, can’t ever really make it up to her, but he doesn’t know what else to try. 

She comes into the kitchen just as he’s finishing up. “The kids?” he asks.

“Watching something.” She leans against the counter next to the sink. “You missed a bit,” she says.

He looks down at the pot in his hands. She’s right. “Shit.” 

She laughs a little. He can’t remember the last time he’d made her laugh. “Just scrub some more. It’ll be fine.” She stays and watches him finish the dishes.

When he’s done, he leans on the counter next to her. “I wasn’t,” he says, “I wasn’t lying, not before, not, you know, I wasn’t.” 

She sighs, soft and resigned, “You really believe that, don’t you?”

“‘Course, Lou, I--” 

She cuts him off. “What you did, Gareth, it’s not--” She stops then starts again. “A stupid mistake ‘cause you’re pissed, that happens once, it’s not--it’s not something you do again and again and--” Her voice goes sharp and the pain in it is like a hammer to his chest. “No,” she says. She’s crying again, quietly, but he can hear it in her voice. “No. You’re lying, Gareth, to me, to yourself, and I won’t be lied to. Not again. Not anymore.”

“I--”

“No,” she says, “Not now. I’ve got--got to go see to the kids.”

“I’ll go,” he says. It’s a small, insignificant gesture, like the dishes, but it’s all he has. “You, ah, I’ll go.”

“Yeah,” she says, “you go.”

He does. He goes and curls up with them on the sofa and watches the film with them. It should be relaxing, but it’s not. She could take them, he thinks, pack them up and leave him and he’d have to let her. He’s done nothing to convince her to stay. The thought of it strangles him, forces the air from his lungs.

***

The silence between them just gets worse after that, brittle and stretched, and being in the house is like having to constantly tiptoe around broken glass. He’s not sure how much more of it he can take. He’s not sure how much more of it _she_ can take.

After a couple days, he finds her one morning, after Freya and Oscar have gone to school and the baby’s settled in the play room and says, “Was thinking, maybe, I’ll go stay with Mick a couple days, give you, you know, some space. I mean, if you like?” because it’s driving him mad being in the house, and he can see it’s driving her mad as well.

She stares at him for a moment. “Okay,” she says, “Actually, yeah, it--it might be good, not just for me, but for you. Have a little distance, a little, you know...”

“Yeah,” he says, “Right. I’ll just, I’ll call Mick, see what he says.”

Michael’s all for it, says he’s got nothing going on and Gareth should just come whenever he wants. He goes the next day. The kids aren’t best pleased. Freya cries a bit. He knows it’s not fair to them, that they’d been looking forward to having him about more, but he doesn’t know how to stay in the house with Louise avoiding him at every turn. If he goes, maybe, just maybe, she can relax a little, be more at ease. He figures it’s worth a try. He doesn’t know what else, besides space, he can give her.

***

When he gets to Michael’s, Michael opens the door all smiles and says, “Gaz! Hey, good to see you. Come in. Come in.” He gives Gareth a quick hug and says, “You shoulda brought Lou and the kids. It’s been so long since I’ve seen them.”

“Well, uh,” he stammers, “the kids, they’re still in school, yeah?” 

Michael claps his shoulder. “Ah, well, next time, yeah?”

“Sure,” he says.

“So,” Michael says later, once he’s come in and settled in, “What? Did Lou get tired of you sulking around the house or what?”

He shrugs. He’s not ready to explain. “Something like that, yeah.”

It’s easy being around Michael; no expectations, no pressure, just familiar quiet mixed with years-old banter. They watch England play Sweden. It’s a great game to watch and he’s a bit pissed, so seeing Joe isn’t even so bad. When England win, he’s glad; wistful, but glad. What it would have been like to be there - but here, on Michael’s sofa, isn’t so bad. 

“So,” Michael says after, “How about that?”

“Yeah,” he says, “Not so bad, that.” On the telly, they’re interviewing Joe, his face taking up almost the whole of the screen. His voice fills the room. “Mick,” he says, “Hey, can you, mind just switching it off?”

“What?” Michael says, “Don’t want to hear what your boy has to say?”

He _does_ , but that’s why he wants it off, why he wants not to be staring at Joe’s face. “Nah,” he says, “Turn it off, yeah?”

Michael gives him a bit of a look, but he switches it off. He looks away and chugs the rest of his beer. 

“I, uh,” he says, still looking away and just pissed enough to let himself say it, “Mick, shit, I made a mistake, a bad one, fucked everything right up. I--” He fiddles with the empty can in his hands.

“Gaz?”

“Do you,” he says, “have another, I--” Michael hands him another. He opens it and then just fiddles with it, his thirst for it gone.

“Gaz?” Michael says, “What’s all this? What’s going on?”

Gareth looks at the floor, pushes his toes against the edge of the rug. “I fucked up, Mick, I--I screwed around--” He’s sure Michael will think he means with some bird, that he won’t even begin to imagine what Gareth’s actually done. That’s all right with him. He’s in no hurry to explain that part of it. “--and--and, Lou, she--” The words almost choke him and he chugs half the beer just so he can keep going. “Well, she, ah, she found out and-”

“Shit, Gaz.” He can’t look up, doesn’t want to see the look on Michael’s face. “Did she, I mean, did she kick you out, Gaz, is that--s’that why you’re here?” 

“No,” he says, “She, I just, she needed some space and I, well, so, I--”

“Okay,” Michael says, “Well, ah, ‘course you can stay here for, you know, for however long you need.”

“Thanks,” he says, looking up. Michael’s not looking at him any different than he normally might. “Mick, I, uh, just, thanks, mate.”

“But uh--” Michael looks down. “Gaz, you’re, I mean, the two of you, you’re not, you know?”

“No,” he says, “I mean, don’t think so. She, ah, she says she doesn’t-- That she’s not leaving, so, uh, don’t think so.”

“You’re--” Michael looks back up, stares straight at him. “Lucky, eh, Gaz? She’s, Lou, she’s--”

“Yeah,” he says, “I mean, yeah, I, uh, don’t deserve it, do I? But, yeah, m’lucky.”

“No, you don’t,” Michael says, then adds, hushed and hesitant, “So, uh, what’re you gonna do?”

He puts his head in his hands, a bit dizzy from the drink. “I, uh, just gotta hope she’ll, you know, that she’ll forgive me and--and that we can carry on, like before. Dunno.”

“What, you know, ‘bout the girl you, that you, you know, you don’t want, well-- Gaz, do, ah, do you want to, you know, with her or--” 

He lifts his head, too fast, everything spins and blurs. “No. Shit, Mick, no.” He’s Louise’s husband, a father, that’s who he _is_ , and he can’t fathom being anyone else, doesn’t _want_ to. “It wasn’t nothing more than, you know...” It’s not quite true, but he’s never wanted with Joe what he has with Louise. That’d never been what it’d been about. “Lou,” he says, “She’s--she’s everything, she’s--” He’d forgotten that, somewhere along the way, gotten distracted by the rough immediacy of what he feels when he’s around Joe, but she truly is everything, the constant center of his life. Saying it out loud, to Mick, it just makes it painfully obvious how reckless he’s been, what he’s risked, all for something that’s nothing, that’s nowhere near as important. “She’s it,” he says, “Mick, for me, not--not-- No one else could, you know? I, uh, I fucked up, Mick, though, simple as, and now I’ve--I’ve just got to hope she, that she...” 

Michael awkwardly pats his back. “‘Kay, Gaz, was just asking. She’ll, m’sure, she’ll come ‘round. That it’ll work out.”

“Yeah,” he says, “Hope so.” He wants to believe it. 

Michael pats his back again. “Hey, she took you back once, mate, right? She’ll do it again.”

He scrubs his hand through his hair. “Shit, Mick, that was just kid’s stuff, yeah? This--this is--”

“She loves you, though, yeah? And there’s the kids. She won’t just-- She’ll come ‘round, Gaz, she will.”

“Yeah,” he manages, “Hope so.” It’s quiet after that and it’s an itchy, uncomfortable quiet. He almost wishes he’d kept his gob shut, hadn’t dragged Michael into his and Louise’s personal business, though it does feel good to tell someone, to not carry it around alone.

“You, uh,” Michael says finally, “want another?”

“Sure,” he says, eager for any kind of a distraction.

He doesn’t remember much of what comes after that. Michael gets him totally pissed, switches them from beer to something harder. He remembers being sick, remembers Michael dropping him into bed. It’s like a flickering slideshow of images, blurred and indistinct. 

When he wakes up, he can hear the sound of rain against the window. He turns onto his side and his stomach lurches. He presses his face into the pillow and tries to breathe through it. He hadn’t noticed it before but the sheets smell musty, like they’ve been on the bed too long without being used. He’s still dressed, but he’s not wearing his shoes. Michael must’ve taken them off. He pushes up. It’s a mistake. He barely makes it to the toilet before he’s sick. 

He stays there, on his knees, presses his forehead against the cool porcelain of the toilet. He should get up, rinse his mouth out, but he just stays there and breathes. It must be positively leathering down outside because he can hear the rain pounding against the roof. He wants to go home. He wants to go home and see Louise and the kids, for everything to be just as it was. He wants to turn back the clock, make it so he’d never touched Joe, so that blurred, fevered moment in that Scottish hotel room had never happened. 

He pushes up, gets gingerly to his feet. The past can’t be changed, though, no matter how he might wish it. He’ll just have to live with what he’s done, try his best to make it up to Louise in any way he can. He can’t do that here, though, standing queasy and hungover in Michael’s bathroom. 

He bends over the sink and rinses his mouth out. The water’s metallic and sharp in his mouth, washing away the taste of sick. He spits into the sink and watches the water swirl down the drain. He swipes his hand across his mouth and carefully makes his way out into the kitchen. 

Michael’s sitting at the counter, his phone and a mug in front of him. “Hey, mate,” he says with a bit of a smile, “How’re you?”

He eases himself into the chair opposite him. “Suppose I’ll live.”

Michael lifts the mug and tips it toward him. “Cuppa?”

“Yeah, ta, mate.” He rests his head in his hands and closes his eyes. The rustling sounds of Michael making the tea make him think of home, of Louise. 

Michael nudges at his shoulder. “Here, Gaz.” 

He opens his eyes. “Cheers,” he says, taking the mug. He takes a careful sip then, when it settles all right, he takes another. Michael sits back down across from him. “Think,” he says, “think m’gonna head back home.”

Michael smiles a bit. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“All right,” Michael says, “Might want to wait for the rain to slow a bit, though, yeah?”

He doesn’t want to, not really, but it does make sense. “Yeah. Right. Guess so.”

When the rain slows, he calls home. “I’m thinking,” he says, when Louise answers the phone, “of driving back today.”

“Okay,” she says. She sounds very subdued. “Ah, Gareth, Emma’s here.”

There is, he knows, no chance, that she hasn’t told Emma at least some of what’s going on, and he can just imagine Emma’s response. “Right,” he says, “Well, I’ll see you a bit later, yeah?”

“Okay,” she says, and hangs up without saying goodbye.

When he says goodbye to Michael, Michael gives him a quick, awkward hug and mumbles, “If you need anything, eh, Gaz, just give us a call, all right, mate?”

He claps Michael’s shoulder and says, “Right. ‘Course. Thanks, for, you know, thanks.”

When he gets home, he finds Emma in the kitchen, making tea. “‘Lo, Emma,” he says as neutrally as he can.

She puts the teacup she’s holding down on the counter and says flatly, “Gareth,” which tells him all he needs to know about whether or not Louise’s told her anything.

“Where’s Lou?”

She stares at him for a long moment, like she’s considering saying something, then she turns back to the counter, picks up the teacup and says, “In the garden with the kids.”

“Right.”

“Tell her,” she says, “I’ll be out in a minute with the tea.”

“Okay.”

He’s just through the door, when she calls after him, “I’m taking her out later, getting her out of the house. You’re staying in with the kids.” She says it like she expects him to challenge her, to make a fuss about it. 

“Okay,” he says without looking back. 

He finds Louise sitting on the lawn with the baby. Freya and Oscar are kicking the ball around. They don’t see him right away and he just watches them for a moment. Then Oscar spots him and takes off running, Freya right behind him. They hit him full force, wrapping around his legs and waist and talking so fast the only word he can make out is _Daddy_. He ruffles Oscar’s hair and bends down to kiss the top of Freya’s head. “Slow down, you lot, can’t understand a word you’re saying.” 

That stops their babble for a moment, but then they’re off and going again. Freya tugs on his shirt. “Daddy! Daddy, come play, come on.”

Before he can say anything, Louise’s there, holding the baby on her hip, saying, “Come on, then, give your dad some space. He’ll be along in a minute.” She shoos them off, back to their game. Once they’re gone, she says, “Hello, Gareth.” 

He thinks, Oscar and Freya, they’re watching, they know he’d usually kiss her hello. He wonders if they’ll notice that he hasn’t, if they’ve noticed yet that things aren’t quite normal, aren’t quite right. “Hey,” he says. The baby’s squirming, reaching out to him. “Can I?” he says.

“Oh,” she says, “Right. Of course.” 

He takes the baby, says hello, and gets a string of incomprehensible babble in return. “Emma,” he says, “said she’d be out in a minute with the tea.”

“Right,” she says, “Look, give her here and go on, Oscar and Freya are waiting.”

He wants to stay, to find something else to say to her, to try and get her to at least smile at him, but he doesn’t want to push, so he gives her the baby and goes. 

He stays out with the kids, playing, not too hard - he’s got to have a care for his injury - until suppertime. “Well,” he says, as he herds them in, “What’ll it be for supper then? Aunt Em and Mum are going out, so what shall I make?” They both give him terribly dubious looks. “Oi,” he says, “I _can_ cook, you know?” 

Freya puts her hands on her hips, tips her head to the side and says incredulously, “Daddy, you can make eggs. S’not a supper food, is it?” His heart stutters a bit, because there’s something about her expression that’s all Louise. 

“Right,” he says, reaching out and tucking her hair behind her ear, “What shall we get then?” 

There’s a bit of a disagreement which is resolved in favor of pizza. It’s already arrived and they’ve settled in with it before Emma and Louise leave. Louise comes and kisses them goodbye. She tugs his shirt as she passes him and says, “Bed at the usual time, Gareth, okay?”

“Right,” he says, “‘Course. You, ah, you have fun, all right?” 

She gives him something that might almost count as a smile and leaves without saying anything else. 

Emma leaves the next day. She stays long enough to say goodbye to the kids before school, then she’s gone with a glare for him and an extended hug and whisper session for Louise. 

“So, ah,” he says, after she’s gone, “Guess you told her, huh?” 

She crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes a bit. “Yes, Gareth, I told her.”

“Like,” he says, because he gets it, he does, and he wants her to have all the help and support she needs, but the details are, well, if the wrong people knew, it wouldn’t mean anything good, not for him, or his career. He knows what people would say, knows what they’d whisper behind his back, and he doesn’t want that, cringes at the thought of it. “Did you,” he says, “I mean, didja tell her everything? All of it? About...”

She scoffs. “You mean, did I tell her that my husband’s been having it off with Joe bloody Hart behind my back? Don’t be a fool, Gareth. ‘Course I didn’t tell her everything.”

“What,” he says carefully, “did you tell her?” 

She holds his gaze as if daring him to look away. “I told her that you’d--that you’d, well, you know, but none of the details.”

“What did she say?” He’s sure he doesn’t want to know, but he can’t stop himself from asking. 

She’s still staring at him, chin tipped up, mouth set in a hard, unforgiving line. “She thinks, Gareth,” she says, voice sharp and clipped, “that I should leave you and take you for everything I can.”

“Are you, I mean, did you,” he says warily, because Emma, if she puts her mind to it, can talk Louise into all manner of things, “Have you changed your mind? Are you gonna...”

She slumps a bit. “No, Gareth, I haven’t. I know my own mind, don’t I? Maybe, if it were just me.” She shrugs. “But there’s the kids and--and I-- Well, there’s the kids.” He can’t help but be relieved; even if she’s only staying for the kids, at least she’s staying, at least he has a chance to persuade her there are other reasons to stay. “Em’s just,” she says, looking away, “She’s--she’s just angry, for me. Just, you know.” She shrugs again.

“Yeah,” he says, “Right.” He pauses then says carefully, “Are you, I mean, are _you_ mad? I mean, at me?” 

She looks back at him. “Really?” she says, “Are you having me on? Of course I am, Gareth, sometimes I’m so bloody furious with you I don’t know what to do.” She doesn’t sound mad, though, just resigned. “Those first few days, _God_ , I’ve never been so angry, didn’t know I _could_ be get that angry.” She stops then says, “And, sometimes, I still am. Don’t know if I ever won’t be. At least a bit, you know? I mean, it was, as if it all wasn’t bad enough, that you, you know, but it was with _Joe_ , not just with-- I _know_ him, Gareth, we’ve been on holiday together, we’ve, _Christ_ , Gareth, he’s had dinner with us, right here in this house. He’s played with our children, he’s-- Of course I’m bloody angry.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says because that’s all there is to say. 

She laughs a little, but not, he knows, because it’s at all amusing. “So you keep saying.”

“Because I am.”

She twists her hair around her fingers and says, “Maybe, just maybe, could you stop saying it? Stop repeating it over and over like it’s going to fix everything. I _know_ you’re sorry, or, at least, I’ve heard you say it enough times. You--you just, if you could just _stop_ and--and, _God_ , I don’t know, just no more, all right?”

“I,” he says, “if that’s what you want.”

She laughs again, ragged and almost hysterical. “What I want, yeah, what I _want_ is for you to have kept your hands off of Hart, to _God_ , what I-- _Oh_ , you know what? Yeah, that’s what I want. No more saying sorry. Can I have that, at least, huh, Gareth?”

“Okay,” he says, “All right.”

She scrubs her hand across her face. “So,” she says, after a moment, “What’d Mick say?” 

He doesn’t bother denying that he’d told Michael. “That I--that I don’t deserve you.”

She shakes her head. “Not on recent evidence you don’t.” There’s nothing he can say to that.

***

The next morning he wakes up to the sound of her voice. “Gareth.” He turns, without thinking, towards it, expecting her to be there, next to him in bed, but the sheets are cold. He’s alone in the bed. “Gareth,” she says, “Wake up.”

He opens his eyes. She’s standing by the side of the bed. She’s dressed, ready to go out. He glances at the clock. He’s slept late. She must be getting ready to take the kids to school. “Yeah?” he says, thinking he’s forgotten something he’s meant to be doing, “Did I-- Lou? Was I...”

She shakes her head. “No, but I-- Look, can you pick Oscar up later? Freya has this thing, right after school and I-- I’ll have the baby, but I’ll never be--”

He pushes up and leans back against the headboard. “Yeah, Lou, ‘course I’ll get him.”

“You’re sure?” she says, “I mean, I could ask someone, maybe Andy’s mum, to get him?” 

She’s never done that, questioned that he’ll do something for the kids he’s said he’ll do. They’ve always been a team. He’s always done everything he could do with the kids. They’ve patterns and routines built over the years. They plan out the days together, often in bed in the morning or before they go to sleep. Of course, now, he goes to bed alone, wakes up alone. But still, he’s always done his best to help as much as he can and to show his appreciation for the fact that she does most of it. He never shirks, if he’s around to help, _never_. She’s looking at him, now, though, like she expects him to, like she’s waiting for another disappointment. “No,” he says, “‘Course I’ll go.”

“Okay,” she says, “I’ll tell him you’ll be coming instead of me.”

She turns to go. “Lou,” he says, “I’ll be around, yeah? Know ‘cause of Euros, you thought, and, maybe, planned for me not to be, you know? But I’m _here_ , Lou, whatever I can help with, let me know, yeah?”

She looks at him for a long moment. “Are you,” she says finally, “Gareth? Are you really _here_ with _me_? Is that---” She looks away. “Is that where you really want to be?”

“Yeah,” he says, “It is. It’s exactly where I want to be. S’where I’ve always--”

She looks back at him. “Okay,” she says, cutting him off, “We, ah, we could talk later, I guess, ‘bout schedules and the like. I’ve--I’ve got to go.”

“Right,” he says, “Okay. Good. Let’s-- Yeah, good.”

***

When Gareth picks Oscar up, he gets into the car smiling and yelling something back to his mates. He settles into the seat and pulls the door shut, slamming it like he always does no matter how many times Gareth asks him not to. “The door, Oscar,” he says, more out of habit than anything else.”

Oscar just smiles and says, “Hey, Dad.”

Gareth resigns himself to endless slammed doors and says, “Hey, buddy, how was school, all right?”

“Was all right, I guess,” Oscar mumbles. 

Gareth’s just getting ready to pull away from the curb when Oscar says, “Daddy.” He’s starting to use _Dad_ more and more, but he reverts to Daddy when he’s excited or worried. This is definitely the worried sort of _Daddy_. 

“Yeah, buddy?” He says, wondering, a bit frantically, just what might’ve gone on at school to prompt this kind of worry. Oscar squirms a bit in the seat. He hasn’t put his seatbelt on yet. “Seatbelt, Oscar,” he says absently. Oscar carefully buckles his seatbelt. Gareth pulls away from the curb and waits for him to go back to what was worrying him.

“Mum’s sad,” he blurts, “Isn’t she?” Gareth’s heart stutters to a stop in his chest. Before he can choke out a response, Oscar says, “I asked her and she said she wasn’t and that I was being silly, but she is, isn’t she?”

He can’t answer right away because traffic’s gotten a bit tricky and, the way he feels, he has to concentrate, else they’re going to have an accident. When he turns onto a quieter street, he says carefully, “Suppose she is, just a bit.” He doesn’t want to worry Oscar, but he doesn’t want to lie, either. 

“Oh,” Oscar says glumly, then, “I knew it.” There’s a grim sort of satisfaction to his last words. He does so love being right. He’s quiet for a moment, then he says, “You’ll fix it, right, Daddy? ‘Cause Mum shouldn’t be sad, should she?”

Gareth feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the car. “No,” he manages to say, “No, buddy, she shouldn’t be.”

“So,” Oscar says, and the desperate hope in his voice kills Gareth a little, “You’ll fix it, then? Won’t you, Daddy?”

“I’m--I’m gonna try.”

“You will,” Oscar says with an unshakeable certainty that Gareth wishes he deserved, “Daddy, I know it.” Then, apparently satisfied by the outcome of their conversation, he chatters on about how Andy’d brought his pet mouse into school, in his pocket, and how Mrs. Barnet had not been pleased at all. 

Gareth lets his chatter wash over him and breathes slowly, in and out, trying to still his racing heart. This is what is at stake; not just him and Louise, but Oscar, Freya and the baby, all of their happiness and security tied to his and Louise’s. He has to try harder, to find a way to rebuild what he’d thoughtlessly torn apart.

***

He’s not sure if he should tell Louise what Oscar’d said, but he decides to chance it. After supper he helps her bring in the dishes for washing up and, over a sink full of dirty pans, he says, “Oscar, he, uh, he thinks you’re, that you’re sad.”

She puts down the plate she’s holding so hard that it shatters, bits of ceramic skittering across the counter and into the sink. “Oh. _Oh, God_ , Gareth, when, _what_ \--” She shakes her head. “Never mind, that," she says tiredly, “Just--just give us a hand would you, with the--” She starts gathering the pieces of the plate up and moves to dump them in the bin. He picks the bits of plate out of the sink, careful to mind the sharp edges, and puts them in the bin. “Did you,” she says, “Get them all?”

“Yeah. Think so.”

“I should,” she says, “Just get to the washing up.” She scoots past him, careful not to touch him, and goes to the sink. She turns the water on. 

“I,” he says, “I told him that I, that I’d try and fix it.”

She whirls around, the water’s still running behind her, and says, “No! No, Gareth, you don’t get to do that, bring him up, put him in the middle of this, to try and make me feel guilty, to-- _God_ , Gareth, it’s not fair, it’s-- Yes, I’m sad and I--I know I have to-- But you don’t get to do that. Not--not when _you_ are the one that--” She stops and, for a moment, there’s only the sound of the water running, then she turns back to the sink. “Just, go, okay, Gareth, check on the kids, something.”

“That’s,” he says, “S’not why I, you know, why I said anything. I just-- I _am_ trying, will try, for as long as it takes, Lou, however you want me to I will, for as long as it takes.” He carefully settles his hand on her back. She shudders, but she doesn’t bat his hand away. “That’s all I really meant, swear it. I--I know you’re, that you’re upset and it kills me that I’ve---that s’all my fault, but I will try, will do anything to make it up to you.”

“Just go,” she says softly, “Please.”

***

He watches the Italy game upstairs in the playroom that the kids never use. He doesn’t tell Louise that’s what he’s doing, but he figures she knows. He waits until the last minute to turn on the match. He doesn’t want to watch the ritualistic pomp of the anthems, doesn’t want to think about how much he wishes he was there, even if he wasn’t on the pitch, even if he was just on the bench. And he doesn’t want to watch the slow pan of the camera over Joe’s face.

Oscar comes in just after kickoff and clambers onto the other end of the sofa. He doesn’t say anything, just settles into the corner of the sofa. “Hey, buddy,” Gareth says, glancing away from the screen, “Come to watch the match?”

Oscar ducks his head. “Yeah. I, uh, I can, right?” he says, sounding oddly hesitant.

“‘Course you can, buddy.”

Oscar lifts his head and smiles a little. “Yeah?” 

Something clenches in Gareth’s chest, like his breath is stuck there, choking him. He takes a slow, deep breath and the feeling slides away. “Yeah,” he says, and Oscar’s smile goes blindingly bright. 

“Thanks, Dad.” 

Gareth can’t help smiling back. “Mind you,” he says, “When Mum says it’s time for bed, you go. No fuss.”

Oscar keeps smiling. “Okay,” he says. Gareth stares at him for a moment, then turns back to the match.

Oscar inches closer as the match progresses and, by the time Louise comes to get him, he’s pressed against Gareth’s side, half-asleep against his shoulder. Recently he’s wanted that kind of closeness less and less. Gareth’s not sure he wants to think about why he wants it now. He thinks of Oscar’s worry about Louise, the way he seemed so desperate for Gareth to fix it. He wonders if this is more of that worry, if Oscar’s picking up on the tension between him and Louise. He doesn’t say anything, though, just holds him close. 

Louise’s expression softens when she sees them. “Oscar,” she says quietly but firmly, “love, it’s time for bed.” 

Oscar lifts his head. “Mummy?” 

Gareth gently straightens him up. “Yeah. Go with Mum now, ‘kay.”

Oscar doesn’t give any argument, which isn’t exactly typical, just gets up and shuffles over to Louise. She ruffles his hair. “Go brush your teeth. I’ll be along in a minute. And make sure your sister’s actually using toothpaste, will you?”

“‘Kay,” Oscar says, and goes.

Louise watches him leave and, once he’s gone, says, “Huh. That was too bloody easy. Is--” She looks back at him. “Did he says anything to you? Is he all right?”

“I--” He scrubs his hand through his hair. “Dunno, Lou, he, ah, he was a bit worried, you know, ‘bout you the other day. Think, maybe, he’s picked up a bit on, you know--” He gestures between them.

“Oh,” she says, “Right.” She glances at the television, where the match’s still going. “That.” She slumps a bit and reaches up to twine the ends of her hair around her fingers like she does sometimes when she’s unsettled. “ _God_ , Gareth, what-- Do you think we should, you know, says something to him? Should we...” She trails off.

“Dunno,” he says, feeling a little sick at the thought of explaining to Oscar, to any of the kids, anything about what’s going on, “I mean, what would we say? I-- I just dunno, Lou.” 

She huffs a bit. “Yes. What would we tell him? That his father--” She stops and shakes her head. “Never mind. Just, maybe, we could wait a bit, see if he says something?”

“Okay,” he says, shamefully relieved, “Sure.”

“You’ll, ah, you’ll tell me,” she says, “If he says something to you, right?”

“‘Course.” He wants to be indignant that she’d ask, that she’d question him like that, but he knows he hasn’t the right.

She smiles a little. “Good.” She gestures toward the door. “I, uh, I’ve got to go, you know. You gonna watch the rest?” She doesn’t look at the television where the match is slogging on, still scoreless. 

“Yeah,” he says, “Think so.” 

“Right,” she says, and then she’s gone. 

The match grinds on, through extra time, and, before a single penalty is kicked, he knows they’re going out, can’t see it going any other way. He watches anyway, watches Joe’s attempts to feint and distract, watches them fail. Then it’s over, they’re out and, even though he’s sat on the sofa miles away, he has the same kind of sinking, helpless feeling he gets after a loss. 

He leaves the television on for a while. He watches Joe lean on Mario, like he’s the only thing keeping him up, and he fumbles his phone out of his pocket and texts him, before he can think better of it, _sorry mate_. 

He stares at his phone for a moment, then he texts Milly and Joleon too, because, maybe, that makes it okay to text Joe, maybe-- He shoves his phone back in his pocket, switches off the television and pretends that it’s okay for him to text Joe, that it doesn’t mean anything.

In the morning, when he checks his phone, there are messages from all three of them. He stares at Joe’s - _me too_ \- for a long time, then he sends, _when u coming bk?_ because he has to tell Joe. He’s out of time and out of excuses not to, he has to tell him. 

Joe replies, _dunno_ , almost immediately. 

_text me when u r bk_ , he sends and doesn’t look at Joe’s reply. Instead, he gets out of bed and goes to help Louise get the kids ready for school. He’s so desperate for a distraction that he actually volunteers to put together their lunches. This mostly leads to a lot of eye-rolling and huffing from Louise because he has to keep asking her where everything is. Finally she snatches the bread out of his hands and tells him to go make sure Oscar’s put his homework in his bag.

***

A few days later, he gets a text from Joe just as he’s sitting down for supper. All it says is _back_. “What’s that, then?” Louise says.

Freya adds solemnly, “No texting at the table, Daddy.” 

Despite everything, he has to smile at that. “You’re right, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” He sends, _can i come c u tmrw?_ to Joe.

“ _Daddy_ ,” Freya says. 

Joe sends back, _sure_. “Sorry. Sorry,” he says, shoving his phone into his pocket. He glances at Louise. “Was just-- I’ve got to go in tomorrow, you know, so they can see how things are, you know?” 

“Right,” Louise says, “Let’s eat, shall we?”

He spends dinner poking at his food and feeling guilty about lying to her. 

The next day he leaves early, like he’s actually going to Carrington. He drives around for awhile in aimless circles, going nowhere. He tries to figure out what to say to Joe, but his thoughts are just as aimless. It has to be done, though, he can’t put it off any longer.

He texts Joe, _u home?_

_yeah_ , Joe sends back, _y?_

He sends, _coming over now_ , and doesn’t wait for a reply.

When he gets to Joe’s, Joe greets him with a smile and a quick hug. He almost fists his hands in Joe’s shirt and traps him in the embrace, because he has a desperate urge for one last moment with Joe before everything’s done. “Hey, Gaz.” His tone is bright and happy. “Good to see you. Come in. C’mon.”

“Yeah,” he says, “Good to see you. Sorry ‘bout, you know.”

Joe shrugs. “Yeah. Well. S’done. Over. Gotta, you know.” 

“Next time,” he says.

Joe smiles a bit. “Sure. Next time. You’ll be back and, well, yeah, next time.” 

Not for the first time, he feels the years between them. When Brazil comes around, he’ll be 33; more than likely he’ll be sitting at home watching the games. Of course, after today, he’s sure Joe won’t much care where he is. “Sure,” he says, “Yeah.”

“How’re,” Joe says a touch hesitantly, “How’re you feeling? How’s, you know, how’s it going?”

“You know how it is. S’going all right, I guess, waiting to see if I’ll need surgery. They’re hoping not but--” He shrugs. “We’ll see.”

“Surgery? Shit, Gaz, really?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

Joe scrubs his hand through his hair. “Well, hope not, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So, uh,” Joe says, “Come in, yeah? You want something to drink or whatever?”

He should say no, should avoid dragging this out any longer, because the longer it drags out, the less he wants to do it. It’s not even about ending whatever it is between them, it’s about having Joe as his mate, it’s about how, after this, not even that will be the same. After this, he won’t even have with Joe what he had before everything else. “Sure,” he says, “That’d be good.”

He follows Joe back into the kitchen. “Whatcha want?” Joe asks, head in the fridge, “Got Diet Coke, juice, water, Lucozade, uh, milk, maybe, actually, scratch that, s’gone off." He looks back. “Well?”

“Uh,” he says, “Water, I guess.” Joe tosses him a bottle that he barely catches. “Oi,” he says, “Watch it. Not all of us are keepers, yeah? Plus, m’injured, aren’t I? Don’t need you adding another one to the list.”

Joe laughs. “Aw, quit your moaning, Gaz, was an easy catch.” He slumps down into one of the kitchen chairs. “C’mon. Sit down, will you?”

He fiddles with the bottle of water. He regrets asking for it. He puts it down on the table and sits down across from Joe. “Look, Joe, I--” Joe’s smiling at him. He looks down at the table. All the things he’d imagined saying to Joe are jumbled together in his head. “We’ve got to, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

Joe’s still smiling when he says, “Well, what is it?”

He’d thought he’d ease into it, but instead he finds himself blurting out, “Louise--she--she knows.”

Joe stares at him, wide-eyed and shocked, smile frozen on his face, then his smile collapses and his whole expression goes flat, shuttered, and Gareth can’t read anything off it. “What,” Joe says, “does she know?”

“That we,” he starts, “that sometimes when we’re pissed we, you know...” He can’t keep going. He doesn’t have the words for this.

Joe laughs, harsh and desperate and so far from normal that it hurts to listen to. Of all the reactions he’d considered, he’d never imagined laughter. “Christ,” Joe says, “are you a thick bastard.” This isn’t going how Gareth thought it would. “It wasn’t about, shit, it wasn’t about us being pissed, I’d--I’d’ve given you anything you asked for, Gaz, pissed or not, I would’ve...” He trails off and looks away.

Gareth thinks he’s always known that, somewhere, in some part of him, but hearing Joe say it is a bit like being kicked in the chest. He thinks of the look on Joe’s face, just before that first time. He remembers thinking _he’ll give me anything I want_. It’s the clearest memory he has of that first time. And he’d asked, even though it was the last thing he should have done, and Joe had said yes. Then he’d taken and taken, thinking Joe would stop him if he pushed too far, but Joe’d given and given until he was so far gone he hadn’t been able to stop. “I--Joe,” he says, half-panicked, though he’s not sure why, “What’ya expect me to say?”

Joe turns back towards him. He’s staring at him. It’s like he’s seeing every part of him, like he’s cutting him open with his stare. “Nothing, Gaz, don’t expect you to say nothing.” 

Gareth can’t take that stare. He looks down at the table. “So,” he says, because he has to make sure Joe really understands, “We can’t, you know, not--not ever-- We--”

Joe snorts and says with sharp, slicing derision, “Yeah, got that, Gaz, no need to--to--”

“She’s not,” Gareth blurts, “leaving. I mean, we’re not, you know? And--”

Joe interrupts. “‘Course you’re not. You never were--never would. You love her. She loves you. It’s-- ‘Course you’re not.” There’s such raw hurt in his voice, like he’s not even trying to cover it up. 

Gareth’s never heard him sound that way, not even after the very worst of games. It tears him up that _he’s_ the one to cause it. “Joe,” he says desperately, “ _Joe_. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” Joe says, looking away again. He sounds defeated now and far away. “Yeah. M’sorry too. And, look, know she probably don’t want to hear it, not from me, but tell Louise I’m sorry, that it’s, never mind, just tell her I’m sorry.”

“I--” Gareth reaches out - to do what, he’s not sure.

Joe slaps his hand away. “Don’t, Gaz, just go, huh? Get out of here.”

“Okay,” he says because he can give Joe that, it’s all he really _can_ give him. He stands up and, for a second, he thinks he’s going to have to sit back down. He feels dizzy and all out of sorts. When he sees Joe again, everything will be different, and he’s not sure he can cope with that--knows he isn’t ready for it. He shakes his head, tries to clear it. “M’sorry,” he says again.

Joe doesn’t look at him. “Go Gaz,” he says tiredly, “Just--won’t you get the fuck out of here already.” 

“Okay,” he says, “Okay.” He goes. He doesn’t remember walking out the door or making his way to the car. He sits in the car until he’s steady enough to drive. He sits there a long time.

***

When he gets home, Louise is making tea. She looks over when he comes in and smiles a little. “Do you want some?”

“Yeah,” he says, because it’s so ordinary, so routine, and he needs that, _craves_ that, “Sure.”

She smiles a little more and says, “Sit down, all right? I’ll bring it over.”

“Thanks.” 

She rolls her eyes a bit. “Well? Go on then, sit.”

He sits and watches her make the tea. It’s soothing to watch her familiar routine, the way she puts the milk in first and the sugar last. Her tea, somehow, always tastes better than everyone else’s, better than his own for sure. She plonks a mug down in front of him. “Here.” She sits down across from him.

“Cheers,” he says.

“So,” she says, taking a sip of tea, “Make out all right at Carrington?”

“I, uh,” he stutters, because all he can think about now is Joe, about how he should tell her, shouldn’t he, that he told him, that it’s all over. “Yeah. Was fine I suppose. Look, Lou, I, uh...” He looks down into his tea. He hadn’t really wanted it, but he couldn’t resist when she’d smiled and offered to make him some, “I told Joe.”

“What?”

He grips the mug as hard as he can. It’s hot, almost too hot, but he doesn’t let go. He looks up. She has her mug halfway to her mouth and she’s staring at him. “I,” he repeats, “told Joe.”

She puts her mug down with a clatter and snaps, “What?”

“I--” he starts.

“I thought,” she interrupts, “You saw him, Gareth, I thought you’d, that you’d already, you know, when you were-- Gareth?”

He lets go of the mug and scrubs his hand through his hair. “I, uh, didn’t then, thought--though it best to wait, you know, so he wouldn’t--wouldn’t be distracted, you know, at--”

“You what?”

“I,” he says, faltering a bit at the look on her face, “I, uh, didn’t want to distract him from Euros, so I--”

“So you waited,” she says, her tone pure vitriol, “Of course, you waited, because _Joe Hart_ , hope of England, mustn’t be _distracted_ , mustn’t be denied anything he bloody wants, not even my--” She stops and puts her head in her hands. “Gareth,” she says and the vitriol is gone. She sounds utterly defeated. “I can’t-- I can’t--” 

“I--” He just barely stops himself saying _sorry_. “Lou, was a mistake. I should-- I should’ve told him when--”

She looks up. “A mistake, Gareth? A _mistake_? I’m starting to think I’m the one that’s made a mistake, that maybe Em was right, that I-- That maybe--”

“ _No_ ,” he says, desperate, “Lou, _please_. I--I know I’ve screwed up. I-- It was a mistake to, you know, but I’m sorry, so sorry.” He knows she doesn’t want any more apologies, but he can’t think what else to say. “For that, for-- I know s’not the only mistake I’ve made but I’m sorry, truly and--and--” He feels out of breath, like he’s just played a hard ninety minutes and is struggling through extra time, fighting for each breath. He has to convince her, has to find the right words. Everything’s coming out wrong and he can’t afford wrong. “I’m sorry,” he says helplessly, even though he _knows_ that’s the wrong word to use, “So sorry and so’s Joe, he’s--”

“No,” she says, cutting him off, “ _No_. I don’t _care_ if he’s sorry, or--or about anything else he has to say. I don’t care. I just, I don’t care, Gareth.”

“Okay,” he says, “Okay, but he is and I am too, so sorry.” It always comes back to that word, no matter what he promises her, because he can’t think of another. “I just--Lou, Lou, I love you, I do, really, so much, and I’m sorry, so fucking sorry. I love you, please-- _Please_ , tell me you believe that.” 

“I’m--I’m trying to.” She’s crying now and he wants, with everything in him, to reach out and comfort her. 

“Lou.” He reaches out. “Please, _God_ , please, don’t.”

She smacks his hand away. “I’ll do as I like.” She’s crying still, low, hitching sobs, but there’s a snap to her words, a raw anger. “Don’t, just--” She puts her head in her hands and cries.

He’s never felt so utterly useless, sitting there watching her, face buried in her hands, sobbing and shaking like it’s tearing her apart from the inside. 

He can’t say how long it lasts, how long they sit there, just the table between them but still miles apart, while she cries. She stops slowly, her shoulders gradually stilling, the sound of her sobbing fading until it dies away with a last, low, shuddering gasp. She doesn’t look up right away, and they sit in silence. 

Then she lifts her head, scrubs her hand across her eyes and says with an oddly serene calm, “Would you have stopped, Gareth, if I hadn’t...” She trails off and stares at him. 

He doesn’t know. He really doesn’t. “I,” he says, reeling a bit, “I meant to stop, after the first time. I was, thought I’d come, beg your forgiveness and--and that’d be the end of it.”

She looks down and fiddles with her tea. “Why didn’t you?” 

“I--” He knows. He’s always known, even when he didn’t want to admit he did. He doesn’t want to say it. Not to her. “I--”

She shoves her mug away, sending it skittering across the table, and laughs, bitter and wholly unamused. “Because,” she says, looking up, “You wanted to do it again, Gareth, didn’t you?”

He can’t lie to her. It would be easier, but he won’t. There’s no point, is there? He’s fairly sure he’s already utterly devastated her. Lying isn’t going to make her feel better, not really. “Yeah.”

She looks, for a second, like she’s going to cry again, then she presses her lips together, tips her chin up, and says softly, “Guess you wouldn’t have stopped then, would you.” 

It’s not a question, but he answers it anyway, because he has to say something. “I, uh, I always thought, every time, that it would be the last time.” It’s true. He’d always thought, _just this and nothing more_ , every time; he’d even told Joe that a time or two, but he realizes now, that it’d never been true. If he could’ve, even with the clawing guilt that came every time he put his hands on Joe, he would’ve probably just kept at it, just kept snatching what moments he could with Joe and come home, just like always, to her. If he could’ve had them both, he would’ve, for as long as he could. 

It’s never been Joe instead of her. She’s everything. His whole life outside of football’s wrapped up in her and their family and that’s the way he wants it, the way he likes it. He loves her, just as much as he always has. Joe’s not a replacement for that. Wanting Joe, even having him, it’s never made him want her, or the life they’ve built together, less. “I,” he says, “ _God_ , Lou. I--I want to say yes,” but he knows he can’t, “but I--I dunno.”

She looks down. “Wonderful,” she says with enough of an edge that he flinches, “Gareth, just--”

“I’m sorry,” he says, “Lou, I--”

“When you’re saying sorry, Gareth,” she interrupts, her tone biting, “Are you--are you sorry that you did it, or are you just sorry I found out?” She looks up, “Huh, Gareth?”

He picks up his mug, puts it down - he wants to look away, but he can’t. He deserves her condemnation, the way she’s looking at him right now, like she’s disgusted with him. “I,” he says, “I’m sorry that I hurt you, that--that what I did, my mistakes, that I-- That I--”

“Stop calling it a mistake,” she snaps, cutting him off, “Like, oops, I just slipped and fell and landed on Joe Hart, eight or _nine_ times. Gareth, you had an affair, you-- You and Joe, you-- For months? A year? I don’t know, longer even? Just--” She shakes her head. “Just,” she says tiredly, “Call it what it was, eh, Gareth?”

“Okay,” he says, “We, I, it was an affair.” The word _affair_ seems strange to his mind. He’d never thought of what he and Joe’d done as an affair, as something as lasting, as substantial as an affair. It’d always seemed so splintered, so unsubstantial and fleeting. Louise was, _is_ , what’s permanent, what’s lasting. 

“Yeah,” she says, “It was, and, of all people, with _Joe_ , who you--who I know you care about and he--he, you know, I always thought, the way he was with you was because, I don’t know, was because he looked up to you and wanted your attention. I, _God_ , I used to think it was kind of, I dunno, almost sweet. But, Gareth, now, looking back, he--he cares about you, maybe-- And you--” She pauses, then says softly, “Do you love him, Gareth, is that it? Do you want to be with--”

“I, Lou, I--” He’d never thought of it, of Joe, that way. _Love_ , to him, means her. It always has. Later, of course, after the kids were born, it meant her and the kids, but always her. It’s one of the few certainties of his life. 

Joe, though, Joe is a brilliant, compelling distraction. And the way he looks at him, like Gareth has all the answers, like he’s worthy of admiration - he’s not sure anyone’s ever looked at him like that. He’d, selfishly and unreasonably, wanted more and _more_ of that, until he’d just _wanted_. 

Then he’d had it, had Joe, and having him made it better and worse, so much worse, because he’d wanted more and he’d wanted to have never done it all at once. Even now, some part of him, the part that craves the way Joe can make him feel, the mind-scrambling heat Joe can send through him with a single touch, _misses_ Joe, and not even Louise’s pain and anger is enough to make him stop.

“I,” he says, again, “Lou, I--”

She shakes her head and looks away. “You,” she says tiredly, “you need to figure it out, Gareth, I’m not--not going to wait forever.” 

It panics him. “You said, Lou, you said--”

“No,” she says, firmly, cutting him off, “No. That was-- I didn’t realize. I thought you’d just fucked him once, that you’d won and all and he was just like some flash girl that’d caught your fancy, I didn’t realize--” She pauses. “Gareth, figure it out, because I can’t, I _won’t_ \--” Her voice breaks but there are no tears this time. “Be second to anyone. Not even for you.” She straightens up and looks him right in the eyes. “I won’t. I accepted long ago that football would always come first but, Gareth, I’m, our family, they’re not coming in behind anything else--behind _anyone_ else.” Before he can say anything, she stands up and says, “I’ve just, I’m gonna go--” She gestures vaguely. “I’ve got to go get the kids. You’ll watch the baby? Yeah? She’s, ah, she’s just napping. Should be up soon.”

“Course,” he says, “I’ll--” She’s gone before he can finish speaking.

***

It’s back to silence after that, worse than before, because, now, the whole house is silent, Louise, the kids, him. No one’s talking. Oscar watches them both with a kind of stunned wariness, but he doesn’t say anything. Freya hovers close to Oscar, who lets her, when normally he’d fuss and push her away. The baby’s the only happy one and her bright chatter and laughter seem strange in the tense silence of the house.

Then, when he’s sure it can’t get any worse, Louise comes to him a few nights later, her shoulders hunched, her face set in tight, unhappy lines, and says, “Oscar, he--he asked me, _God_ , he wants to know why--why you’re sleeping in the guest room. He--” She scrubs her hand across her face, “ _Gareth_ , what’re we--” She looks at him. “What’re we gonna say, Gareth? _God_.” 

“I--” He’s no idea what to say. “Dunno, Lou, what--what do you think?”

“What do _I_ think?” she says, tone incredulous, “I think--I think this is your mess, Gareth, your-- _God_.”

“I,” he says slowly, grasping around for an explanation, for something he can actually tell his son, “Could--could say it’s the injury, you know, that--”

“Fine,” she says, shaking her head, “Whatever.” She pauses, then she adds, “You get to tell him.” 

“What?” he says, “Lou, shouldn’t-- I mean, don’t you want to, at least, I mean, we could together?”

“No,” she says flatly, “Your mess, Gareth, you tell him.”

There’s nothing he can say to that. “Uh, when,” he says, “When do you figure’s the best time?”

She shrugs. “Tomorrow, I guess, you can get him from school, tell him in the car. I don’t--” She stops, starts again, her tone sharp, “I don’t want Freya hearing, don’t want her worrying if--if she’s not already, all right?”

“Whatever you think’s best,” he says.

“Okay,” she says, turning to go, “That’s settled then,” and then she’s gone.

***

Oscar’s quiet when Gareth picks him up from school. He mumbles his hello and doesn’t even slam the door. Gareth waits until he’s through the worst of the traffic, then he says, “So, Mum says you asked her why--why I’m sleeping in the guest room?“

Oscar shrugs, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I--” This is harder than Gareth thought. He wishes Louise was here, wishes she was doing the talking. She’s so much better at this sort of thing. “You know I’m injured, right?”

“Yeah,” Oscar says, and shrugs again.

“So, it’s, it, uh, makes it hard, yeah, to sleep with Mum, ‘cause I might-- It could make it worse, yeah? If--if--” He’s afraid this is coming out all wrong. “It’s--it’s only ‘cause I’m injured, okay?”

“Okay,” Oscar says, but he doesn’t sound like he believes him. 

“So,” he says, “I mean, you understand?”

“Yeah,” Oscar says, “Sure, so you can sleep while you’re injured.” He still doesn’t sound convinced, but Gareth doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know how to convince him. 

“Yeah,” he says, finally, “So I can sleep while I’m injured.” 

He spends the rest of the drive trying to talk to Oscar about other things, but Oscar stares out the window and ignores him.

***

The thing of it is, though, he _can’t_ sleep. He tosses and turns and looks, constantly, for Louise next to him. He doesn’t do that on the road, but here, in the house, it’s strange not to sleep beside her.

He spends the nights, when he’s not trying and failing to sleep, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what Louise’d asked him about Joe. She can’t be right. He can’t love Joe. Joe certainly can’t love him. Still, he can’t sleep for thinking-- if it wasn’t love, was it just shagging, was it just-- It feels wrong, though, that explanation. 

He wants to talk to Joe, wants to hear Joe say that it was just fucking, just them pissed and shagging, but he’s not sure that’s what Joe’ll say. 

The less he sleeps, the more the days drag in painful, stilted silence. They can’t go on like this. It’s killing them. 

One night, when he hasn’t slept at all, he decides, he’ll just have to call Joe, that if he just hears Joe say that it was nothing, then he can move on, then he can go to Louise and say for certain that she’s _it_ for him. 

He gets up, sits on the edge of the bed and takes his mobile off the nightstand. He doesn’t bother to switch on the light. He turns his mobile over and over in his hands. He should call, get it done. It seems wrong, though, to talk to Joe in the house, in the home he shares with Louise and his children. 

He gets up, goes downstairs and out into the garden, into the low, gray light of the morning. It’s chilly, but he doesn’t go back in for a jumper. He sits down at the table and the damp seeps through his pants. He shivers a bit, but he leans back into the chair and lets it seep through his shirt as well. It’s misty and barely light. He can just see Oscar’s practice net tipped over on its side at the edge of the garden, Freya’s bike abandoned next to it. They’re supposed to put them away, but Louise doesn’t care as much about that as he does, and so they’re often just left unless he picks them up. 

He leaves them now and simply sits. He takes his mobile out of his pocket and keeps turning it over and over in his hands. If he’s going to do it, he thinks, he should just do it, but he doesn’t.

He gets up and crosses the lawn. The grass is wet and cold against his bare feet, and picks up the net and the bike. He takes them into the shed and stores them in their proper places. 

It’s slightly warmer in the shed and he stands there for a moment, surrounded by Oscar’s and Freya’s toys and the tools Louise uses when she gets her occasional yens to garden. There’s a bright pink ball in the corner. Most likely it’s the baby’s. He bends down, picks it up and puts it away. He stands there, in the midst of all these reminders of his family, of the people he loves most, and tries to imagine being without them. The feeling’s a chill colder than the morning air, a deep, empty, aching feeling, and he wonders why he’d done it, why he’d risked it all, everything he cherishes most, and trashed a friendship, all for what? A handful of fucks and blowjobs he can hardly remember because he was so pissed when they happened. He hadn’t thought he could be so bloody stupid.

He goes back out into the morning chill, makes his way back across the lawn and sits back down in the cold, metal chair. He takes his mobile out again and stares at it. He dials Joe’s number from memory. He’s not sure when he memorized it, but he has - just one more way he’s entangled himself with Joe without realizing it. 

It rings once, twice, then Joe answers, “The hell, who’s this? It’s, shit, s’the middle of the bloody night here.” 

He doesn’t know where Joe is, hadn’t even thought about it. “It’s,” he says, “Joe, s’me.”

There’s a long pause, and he digs his toes against the table leg until it hurts, and waits. 

“Gaz? What the fuck? I mean, what’re you, shit, Gaz, I--I thought--” 

“I,” Gareth interrupts, “I just, I needed to, Joe--Joe do you--” It’s hard, even thinking about saying the next words. “Did you, with me, because-- Joe--” He squeezes his eyes shut and says the next words as fast as he can. “Do you love me?” 

“Do I--” Joe sounds totally shocked. “Gaz, the fuck are you going on about? Do I _what_?”

He can’t bring himself to say it again, so he just says, “Well, do you?”

Joe laughs. “If I do, then that’s me well fucked, isn’t it?”

“Joe,” he says desperately, because he _needs_ an answer, “Please.” 

There’s a long pause. He doesn’t dare speak. “Yeah,” Joe says, his voice going quiet, “No. I dunno, Gaz, maybe. A little bit, yeah.”

‘Oh.” He’s so staggered it’s all he can think of to say. He’d been waiting for him to say _no_ , because if Joe doesn’t, then _he_ certainly doesn’t. Joe never gives the easy answers, though, never does the things he expects him to do.

“What about me,” Joe says, “then, Gaz? Was I just an easy fuck, just--”

“No.” Gareth snaps. He’d hurt anyone else, he thinks, who talked about Joe that way. Joe who’s brilliant and frustratingly but wonderfully challenging. But this is Joe, talking about himself, this is Joe putting words into _his_ mouth. “No. We’re--we’re mates, yeah? You’re-- I--”

“Oh?” Joe snaps, interrupting him, “You do what we did with all your mates then? Do you, Gaz? Am I not the first? What? Were you and Standing, back in the day? Or you and Milly, back at Villa, huh? Or, now, even? _Shit_ , Gaz, have you always been doing this to Louise? Fucking your mates behind her back? ‘Cause, what we did, it was shitty, yeah? But, _God_ , Gaz--”

“No,” he says, because he has to shut Joe up, he can’t listen to any more of this, “ _God_ , no, just--just with you, Joe, it was only-- Just you.”

Joe laughs, the sound of it sharp and brittle. “That--that don’t really make me feel better, Gaz, it--”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Yeah,” Joe says, “I know. But, Gaz, it still doesn’t make it better.”

“Sorry,” he says again. He’s lost track of the number of times he’s said it, to Joe, to Louise. He wishes he had something more to offer, something better to say, but there’s nothing else. Nothing he else he can say, nothing else he can do, except say it over and over until he’s not sure it means anything at all. 

“Yeah,” Joe says, “Whatever. Hang up, Gaz, go--go get on your knees and beg ‘til your wife forgives you. Go, _shit_ , just go and stop calling me, stop asking if I-- Shit, Gaz, it don’t matter, does it? ‘Cause you don’t love me. I know that. Always fucking knew that. Just--”

“I don’t,” he blurts, even though it’s the wrong thing to say, because, he realizes now, he _doesn’t_. He’d wanted Joe, like you want the things you’re not allowed to have, like an extra piece of cake after supper or that last shot at the bar, like all the things that make you feel good for a moment, when you do them, but you regret later because that feeling never lasts and, when it’s gone, you just feel sick and kind of empty. That’s not love, though, it’s, he’s not sure what it is, but it’s not what he feels for Louise, it’s not even everything he feels for Joe. He cares about Joe, like a mate, he thinks, like Michael, or his mates from home, and he’d wanted him, but that’s not love. 

Love is Louise and the way she makes him laugh when there’s nothing to laugh about, the way she takes him for who he is, good and bad, the way she’s never, ever, let him down, not when it really mattered, the way she’s the center of everything good in his life. He looks into his future and she’s all he sees, her, their family-- that’s love, for him, that’s all there is, all he wants. “I’m sorry,” he says, “But--”

Joe makes a low, shuddering sound. “Right,” he says, “Well, thanks, for that,” and he hangs up. It’s about, Gareth thinks, all he deserves.

He drops his mobile into his lap. He should go in, he thinks. He’s done what he came out here to do; he can go back inside, into the warmth of the house, but he doesn’t. He sits in the cold and damp. It’s gotten brighter, the sun’s come up a bit more, but it’s still chilly. 

He hears the door open behind him and he looks back. It’s Louise. “Gareth,” she says, coming towards him, “What on earth? Gareth, what’re you doing out here?” She’s wearing her pajamas, her hair’s sleep mussed and tousled around her face. She’s beautiful, he thinks, just like that. “Gareth?” she says, “It’s cold and wet, what’re you doing out here, you’ll catch your death of cold. No shoes, no jumper, what’re you doing?” He loves her, he thinks, so much so it’s like a part of him, like it’s knit into his very being, like there’s no other way he can be except in love with her. She comes right to his side. “Gareth?” 

He looks up at her. “I, uh, just came out for a bit. I, uh, couldn’t sleep so I--I just--” 

She puts her hand on his shoulder and the warmth of it’s a shock. “Come inside,” she says, “Gareth, all right?” 

He puts his hand over hers, slowly, so she can pull away if she wants. She doesn’t. “I love you, Louise,” he says, “Nothing’s more important to me than you, than our family. Not football, not-- Just-- Nothing’s more important.” She doesn’t pull her hand away and it rests, warm and still under his. 

“Come inside, Gareth,” she says softly, “Come on,” and pulls her hand away. He gets up and follows her into the house.

Once they’re inside, she turns to him and says, “Go get the kids up, all right? I’ll start breakfast.”

“Lou,” he says, “I--”

She puts her hand on his chest, right over his heart. “Go on, Gareth, they’ll be late otherwise.”

“Just,” he says, “Lou, I meant it. All of it.”

She stares at him for a moment, then she smiles a little, pats his chest and says, “Okay.” He can’t help smiling back at her. He feels like he does when they win, like he felt when he held the Premier League trophy for the first time, because she’d believed him, smiled at him. “Quit that,” she says, poking his chest, “and go on, unless you want to be the one to explain to their teachers why they’re late.” He’s still smiling as he makes his way up the stairs.

It turns out to be the best moment of the day. When he gets to Carrington, he gets sat down with the doctors and the physios, a big enough group of them that he’s worried before anyone even opens their mouth, and it’s explained to him that not only do they think he needs surgery but they want to send him to Munich to have it. They go through all the details, and he does his best to pay attention, and they send him home.

Louise and the baby are out when he gets home. He has the vague idea that there’s some sort of class, play group type of thing that they have at this time, but he’s not sure. He’s tired, adrift from everything that keeps him grounded, not sure where everything goes, or what supposed to happen when. He doesn’t like it. 

It’s a bit disconcerting, being in the house alone. It’s too big, too quiet, without the kids, without Louise. He wanders around aimlessly, picks up the scattered toys in the sitting room, does the breakfast dishes, then he sits down in the sitting room, turns on the telly and flips through the channels. There’s nothing on.

When he hears the door open and hears the baby’s excited chatter and Louise’s low, murmuring response, it’s a relief. He goes to meet them at the door and the baby reaches for him straight away. “Dadda, Dadda,” she says over and over again, smiling the whole time.

“Hey, love,“ he says, reaching out and taking her from Louise. She chatters away and waves her hands, almost clocking him in the face. 

“Gareth?” Louise says, while he’s settling the baby on his hip, “What’re you doing here?” She sounds worried. She knows as well as he does that him being home early isn’t a good sign. 

“Later,” he says, “All right, Lou?”

She nods. “Right. Well, ah, we were just gonna have lunch. You want to...”

“Yeah,” he says, “Sure. That’d be good.”

Later, after dinner and after the kids have gone to bed, he tells her. “Munich?” she says, “Gareth, really? Does it have to be there? Can’t you...”

He shrugs. “S’where the surgeon is.”

She looks down and fiddles her fingers together. “But, ah, they think, with surgery, with this surgeon, that you’ll-- That everything’ll be all right? You’ll...” She trails off.

He knows what she’s asking without asking, _is this the one, the moment that starts the inevitable slow slide to the end of his career?_

“I,” he says, “Well, I dunno, Lou.” It’s a perpetual worry, what they would do if he suddenly couldn’t play, what they _will_ do, when his career eventually stumbles to a halt. After all, nothing lasts forever; his body can only withstand so much before it inevitably betrays him. Some things go and never come back, and technique can only make up for so much. He’d always assumed it’d be the biggest problem they’d ever have, the most serious thing they’d ever have to face. But he’d always been sure they’d manage it, not easily, maybe, but that they would, because they’d do it together. He’d never imagined that, instead, he’d be struggling to make sure they _stayed_ together. “They, uh, they seem to think so.”

She looks back up. “Okay,” she says, “That’s-- Okay.”

“It’ll be all right, Lou,” he says, because it has to be, because he’s not prepared to face the alternative, especially not if, potentially, he’ll have to face that alternative without her, “It will.” He reaches out, forgets all the reasons he shouldn’t, meaning to pat her knee or take her hand. He stops halfway, remembers that she doesn’t really want his touch, doesn’t want him close to her. 

She takes his hand and squeezes tight. “Of course it will.” He squeezes back just as tight, hard enough it’s probably hurting her, but she just smiles and squeezes his hand harder. Then she lets go and sits back. “When?” she asks.

He can still feel her fingers wrapped around his. “Ah, day after tomorrow. Flight’s really early.”

“How long?”

He shrugs. “A few days. They don’t think I’ll stay there too long after. Think they want me back as soon as I can, you know?”

“Okay,” she says and pushes up out of her chair, “I’m just--” She pats his shoulder as she passes him. “Just going to go up.”

“‘Night, then,” he says and wishes he could follow her upstairs, get into bed with her and wrap himself around her. Instead, he goes around the downstairs and turns off the lights and checks the alarm.

***

In Germany, he’s surrounded by people, but he feels, somehow, all alone. On the day of his operation, while he waits for it to be time, all he can think about is Louise’s unasked question, the nervousness in her eyes. She’s not wrong. This could be it, the moment his career never recovers from. He shouldn’t think about it, though, shouldn’t think that way, but he can’t seem to stop. He thinks of it, of going from team to team, maybe playing in the Championship or lower. He thinks of doing it all without Louise, wonders, there, all alone in this strange place, if they can truly work it out, really get back to something like normal, or if all he has ahead of him is a waning career, empty houses and snatched visits with his kids as they grow up without him.

“Mr. Barry?” the nurse says.

He shakes his head a bit. “Sorry. What?”

“It’s time,” she says, “Are you ready?”

“Right,” he says and pretends he believes it, “Sure. ‘Course.”

When he gets home, he’s so tired, so dazed from the meds, that, when Louise opens the door, he leans in to kiss her hello without thinking. She turns away and his mouth glances against her cheek. As alone as he’d felt in Germany, it doesn’t compare to the way he feels now, as she flinches away from him and steps back. “Sorry,” he says, “I--”

“Never mind," she says, taking his bag from him, “Just come inside.”

***

Even after everything that was said between them before he’d gone to Germany, the house is still quiet when he gets back. They’re all still edging around each other. He’d thought things would’ve changed, but they haven’t. It’s like they’re stuck in place, stalled just out of each other’s reach.

Then it gets worse, because, a few days after he gets back, he finally hears back from the doctor. The tests all come back clean, but, instead of relief, all he feels is a sick kind of shame, because what _if they hadn’t?_ What if in his recklessness and selfishness he’d actually made Louise sick? 

He stalls on telling her because he doesn’t want to go back to those first days, doesn’t want to see the utterly devastated look she’d had on her face when she’d asked him about this ever, _ever again_. But he owes her the answer so, after the kids are in bed, he finds her and tells her. He says it as quickly and as simply as possible and makes himself look at her while he does it, even though all he wants to do is stare at the floor. 

She looks straight back at him, stares intently at him for a moment, then she nods once, turns on her heel and walks away. He wishes she’d said something, anything, even if she’d yelled and screamed at him. He doesn’t care. She never does, and that’s worse. 

Instead, they go back to silence, all the little steps they’d taken forwards gone, washed away by this new reminder of his reckless selfishness. 

“Are you--” he says, one night, when she comes to tell him she’s going up to bed, “Are you ever gonna talk to me again?” because the silence is strangling him, because they can’t continue like this. 

She stares at him for a moment. “Just did,” she says flatly.

“No,” he says, “I mean, for real, for, _God_ , Lou, What’re we gonna do? Do we, I mean, can we carry on like this? Can we-- _God_. How’d it come to this?” He regrets saying it as soon as he’s finished speaking because he _knows_ how they came to this. _He_ brought them here, _he_ did this. 

She stays there, in the doorway, staring at him, for a moment, then she comes and sits down in the chair next to the sofa. “I dunno, Gareth,” she says tiredly, “I just don’t--” She slumps back into the chair. “What do you want me to say?”

“I,” he says, leaning forward, “I dunno. Just, how’d we come to--” He stops. It was stupid the first time he’d said it. It’s worse to say it again.

She huffs out a breath then says, “Oh, _Gareth_ , I dunno. We were so young, you know, when we-- Maybe--maybe you-- _we_ just missed our chances to explore other options. Maybe--” She sounds so tired, like she used to right after Oscar was born and neither of them had been sleeping through the night. “Maybe we would have been better off if we’d stayed apart all those years ago, you know, when we--”

He thinks of that long ago December, remembers those aimless, drifting days when he’d ached just to hear the sound of her voice. He tries to imagine everything that came after, tries to imagine it without her. It’s unbearable. He imagines no Oscar, no Freya or the baby. “Is that,” he says, “Lou, I mean, would you have wanted that, do you--”

She closes her eyes and turns away. “No, God, _no_ , Gareth, you, the kids, _our family_ , that’s my world, my whole world. I’d--I’d’ve never wanted to--” He’s made her feel, he realizes, like her whole world isn't his, that her and their family are second best, that they aren't what he wants. 

“Do you know,” he says, “how nervous I was that Christmas Day? How afraid I was that you were just going to tell me to sod off? I was-- I was ready to get on my knees and beg. I was.”

She opens her eyes and looks at him. “ _Oh_ , Gareth--” 

He cuts her off. “It’s nothing compared to how I feel now. M’terrified, Lou, scared right down to my bones, and I know it’s my own fault, but the thought of being without you is the most terrifying thing I can imagine. I--I love you.” His face feels hot--wet. Tears, maybe - he can’t remember the last time he cried. He roughly scrubs his hand over his eyes. “You and the kids, our family, they’re-- _you’re_ my whole world. The whole of it. All of it. And--and I’ve made you think otherwise, I know it, and I’m so sorry, sorrier than I can put into words. But you are. You’re everything.” She’s crying and he hates that, hates how much he’s made her cry. “And I’ll--I’ll do anything, anything Lou, to make it right, to--” 

She gets up and comes to sit beside him. She doesn’t sit separate from him, she presses right against his side, and it’s like he can breathe again after days of struggling for air underwater. She takes his hand and squeezes it. He never wants her to let go. He’s starved for her touch, misses it like someone’s carved his heart right out of him. 

“Gareth,” she says, her tone so achingly gentle, “There’s no one thing you can do. No way to just make it the way it was. We’re--we’re just going to have to--to try and work at it, to figure out where we go from here.” She squeezes his hand. “I--I still-- I love you, Gareth.” He wasn’t sure she’d ever say that to him again. “I-- I want to believe you, when--when you say all these things but-- I just, I need time. You have to, Gareth, you have to give me that. I’m not leaving. I’m not taking the kids. But I- I just need time.”

“So we--we just go on?” he asks.

“Yeah, Gareth, we go on, you know, just try and work back to something like we had before and--and--” Her voice breaks a bit. “You, you’re going to promise me that, if--if you ever decide that this, that us, _me_ , if that’s not what you want anymore, you’re going to have the courage to tell me so.”

“I--” He starts.

She interrupts, “I know you, Gareth, I know you’re about to say that’ll never happen or something, but it _did_ and Gareth--Gareth, I don’t have it in me to forgive you again, so promise me. Promise me you’ll tell me and we’ll--we’ll-- Promise me.”

“I--” His mouth is dry, acrid with something like fear or sorrow, though, for what he doesn’t know. He swallows. “I promise, Lou, I promise.”

“Okay,” she says, “And--and so do I, ‘kay? Fair is fair.”

“Right,” he says, though that terrifies him more than anything else, that maybe there’s someone out there who’d treat her better, who’d put _her_ first and not a game, who’d never do what he did to her, and that someday she’ll find him and leave him, “Fair is fair.” He realizes then, just what he’s destroyed, what he’ll never get back, even as they work their way back to a proper relationship. That certainty he’s always had, that it would be Louise and him forever, that nothing would ever tear them apart - that’s gone, that’s never coming back. He’s smashed it into bits so small it can’t be put back together. “Have you,” he says haltingly, after a minute, “You know, _have_ you forgiven me?”

“I’m--I’m working on it, Gareth, I’m-- Okay?”

“‘Course,” he says. He wants to be able to _do_ something, to _fix_ it, but he knows she’s right. “‘Course it’s okay.” He waits, then, for her to let go of his hand, to get up and leave him there, but she doesn’t. They stay there a very long time. He sits as still as he can, content to stay there with her for as long as she’ll let him.

***

He stops waiting after that, because he had been waiting, waiting for her to come and say she’d forgiven him, to say it’s all forgotten and that they can go back to normal. Now, for the first time, he realizes, truly realizes, that it’s not so simple. They’re never going back to before. They have to start again, to rebuild, and it’s going to be slow and hard and painful. He’d, even though he’d been the one to smash it all to bits, wanted, _expected_ , for it to be made right with some apologies and her forgiveness. She’d been telling him the whole time that it couldn’t be made right like that, but he hadn’t heard her because he’d been so desperate to have things back the way they’d always been.

It makes everything easier, somehow, the loss of his expectations. The silence in the house slips away. Louise starts talking to him. Mostly about the kids, a little bit about his rehab, sometimes things her mum’s said. Starts sharing with him all the bits of everyday life, all the little, ordinary things that hold their relationship together. He doesn’t push her to talk about anything else. Just talks with her about whatever she brings up. She still doesn’t touch him much, still skirts around him, but she seems at ease in his presence in a way she hasn’t in weeks. That’s enough, for now. 

School ends and Oscar and Freya start their summer holidays. So they, all of them, start spending their afternoons, once he’s done at Carrington, together, going out, going all different places. Louise starts smiling at him when they’re all out together, even laughs a bit at his attempts at jokes. It all feels almost normal. 

The kids seem to pick up on that too, Oscar starts smiling again and Freya stops clinging to Oscar. It’s a relief, that, seeing them happy again. He hated to see them worry, to see them take on the tension and stress between him and Louise. Hates still more that he was the cause of their worry to begin with. 

It’s nice to have some time to spend with them, with Louise. They don’t do anything fancy, just trips to the zoo, to the cinema, the park, out to get a bite to eat. He misses this, during the season, just getting to be together as a family. Now, too, he’s painfully aware that, through his own stupidity, he could’ve had this all snatched away from him and that makes it even better, makes him realize just how precious it all is to him.

***

Joleon, Milly and Joe all come back to Carrington on a Monday. He’d determinedly not been paying attention to when they’d be back, so it’s a surprise to come into the dressing room and walk straight into Joleon. Joleon laughs and claps his shoulder. “Watch where you’re going, eh, Gaz?”

“Sorry,” he says and doesn’t look around for Joe, doesn’t look anywhere but right at Joleon, “Didn’t see you.”

Joleon claps his shoulder again. “No worries, mate. How’re you then? All right?”

He shrugs. “You know, had surgery, been doing the rehab. It’s-- Well, you know.”

“Yeah,” Joleon says, “Well. Sure you’ll be back soon enough.” Then he’s off, gone to harass Vinnie about not texting him enough or something. 

He turns, and there’s Joe. For a moment, it’s like everything’s paused. Even though the dressing room’s bustling and noisy, everything seems hushed and muffled. He feels stuck in place and far away. He has to say something to him. They’re surrounded by people who know they’re mates, who’re expecting a certain interaction between them. He’s still struggling to figure out what to do, when Joe says, “Heya, Gaz.” 

“Harty,” he says, still feeling a bit dazed, “Hey.” Then they just stand there. The sounds of the dressing room come rushing back, everything around them going on as normal.

“So,” Joe says, “How’re you? How’s the, you know, the rehab going?”

“S’it’s, well, s’going all right. How about you, how’re you doing?”

“Fine,” he says. He lightly claps Gareth’s shoulder. “I’ve--I’ve just got to-- S’good to see you.” Then he’s gone.

It’d all been civil and hollowly friendly, like Joe was just a teammate, not a mate. He can get used to that, he _has_ to, because that’s how it’s going to be, that’s all it can be. He tugs his practice top on. He’ll get over this sinking, aching feeling, the way he _misses_ the way Joe used to be with him. That’s it, _end of_ , he can’t afford to miss him. He’ll just have to treat him like he has all the other teammates down the years that he wasn’t close with. Polite, professional, that’s it. The sooner he starts, the better.

***

A few days later, after Louise puts the kids to bed, she comes back down and, to his surprise, comes into the living room and sits with him. She hasn’t done that in ages, not since before that day in May.

She smiles a little when she comes in, then she curls up on the opposite end of the sofa. She’s brought her book. She doesn’t say anything to him, just starts reading, her book between them. He’d bought her a Kindle, right after they’d first come out, but she seems to prefer books. 

He waits, just to see if she wants to talk or anything, but she keeps reading, so he turns back to the telly. She stays, and it’s nice -- not as nice as when she curls up with him and reads him the bits of her book that make her laugh and lets him play with her hair, run his fingers through it, twine the strands of it around his fingers -- but it’s still nice. 

When she closes the book and says, “Think I’m going up,” he says, “All right. Good night.”

She puts the book on the table and stands up. She fiddles her fingers together, like she does when she’s nervous, and says, “Do you, I mean, you--you can come up too, if you like?” 

It takes him a minute to truly understand. “With you, I mean, to our--” he says because he has to be sure, because he doesn’t assume anything anymore.

She nods. She bites at her lower lip, looks down at the floor and says, “Ah, not, you know, for, but if you wanted to come back, sleep there, I’d--I’d-- That’s okay with me.”

“Of course,” he says, so fast his words tangle together, “Lou, yeah, mean, ‘course I want to.”

She laughs a little and looks up. “Okay. That’s settled, then.” She smiles. “I’ll just-- M’going up.” She turns and goes.

He switches off the telly and follows her, not close enough to crowd her, but he doesn’t want to lose sight of her. 

There’s a strange, stilted quality to a routine that’s years old and so familiar. He doesn’t know if he should look away as she changes into her pajamas or not. In the bathroom, the skirting around each other is fraught instead of easy and natural. He wants to say something to break the tension, but he doesn’t know what to say. All he knows is that, awkward or not, he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, especially not back in the bland, un-lived-in guest room, knowing she’s just down the hall, just out of his reach. 

“You’ll,” she says, as she leaves the bathroom, “ah, you’ll get the light?” She always asks that, even though he _always_ gets the light.

“Yeah,” he says, like he always does, “‘Course I will,” and she smiles.

She’s in bed when he comes out, her back to his side of the bed, but that’s okay - one thing at a time. He can wait; for as long as she wants, he’ll wait. He shuts the light off and makes his way over to the bed.

When he wakes up, he finds he’s tangled up with Louise, that he’s wrapped himself around her in his sleep. He stays very still and waits. She opens her eyes, slowly, resisting the morning the way she always does. “Gareth?” she says, her voice soft and sleep slurred. 

“Yeah,” he says, “s’me.”

She smiles. “Good morning.”

He wants to shift forward and kiss her good morning, like he has thousands of times before. She’s watching him, still smiling, and she hasn’t moved, hasn’t pushed him away. “Can I,” he says, his voice shaking, “Lou, I want to kiss you, can--can I?”

She leans in and kisses him, light and soft, once, then again. “Okay,” she says, and he kisses her before she’s done saying it. He’s careful with it, like it’s their first time, their first kiss. 

He kisses her again without thinking, without asking, lost in the slow, sparking pleasure that comes from the careful give and take of her mouth and his. He pushes a little, coaxes her until she opens her mouth for him. He presses closer, rests his hand on her side. Her top’s rucked up. She’s a restless sleeper, always getting tangled in the sheets, in her pajamas. Her skin’s warm and satin soft under his hand. He runs his thumb along her side, glorying in the feel of her skin. “Gareth,” she says, pulling away, “ _Oh_. I--” He waits and hopes. “You,” she says, startled and a touch wary, “You still want--” She closes her eyes and takes a slow, shuddering breath, her side trembling under his hand. She keeps her eyes closed and says, “You still want me?” like it’s a surprise, like it’s something she has to ask about.

And he aches, because every time he thinks he’s found out all the ways he’s hurt her, he finds another. He kisses her. “Lou, open your eyes, _please_.” She does, slowly, and looks at him like she’s bracing for a blow. “I--I never stopped,” he says, “Lou, never could. I always have, always will. Could never, _never_ stop.” He kisses her again and she makes a low, sobbing sound against his mouth.

“Gareth, _oh_ , I--I thought, I--” 

He kisses her again. “I do,” he says, “so much.”

She smiles a little. “I-- That’s--” She kisses him, quick and fluttery soft. “M’not ready for, I mean, not yet, okay? But--” She kisses him again. “M’glad. I-- Just, s’nice to hear.” She kisses him one more time and then she slips out of his hold and up and off the bed. “I’ll just,” she says, she’s blushing a bit, like she hasn’t since they were young and first together, “M’gonna go see if the baby’s up, yeah?”

“Okay,” he says, holding onto the memory of the feel of her skin, of her mouth giving against his, “All right.” He pushes himself up. “I’ll just--just go see about putting breakfast together, all right?” 

She smiles at him, bright and unrestrained. He’ll do anything, he thinks, anything he can to keep her smiling at him like that. “Thanks,” she says and ducks out the door.

***

A few days later, on a whim, on the way home from Carrington, he stops and buys a dozen pink roses. He’s resisted, thus far, the urge to buy her things. He knows what he’s done isn’t something that can be made up for with gifts. And he doesn’t want her to think that he thinks that her trust, her affection, is something that can be purchased.

He lingers in the florist's, looking at different flowers, even though he knows what he’ll get, because he’s not sure he should get anything at all. He gets them, in the end, and the clerk does them up nice and says, “For the missus, are they?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Special occasion?”

“Nah, just, you know.”

“Ah,” says the clerk and hands him the receipt, “I see.” 

Gareth’s not altogether sure just what the clerk sees, but it all makes him a bit uneasy.

He cradles the flowers carefully and gently lays them on the passenger seat, mindful not to crush them. 

When he gets home, he sits in the drive for a long while and stares at the flowers, at the soft pink of the petals, at the pristine white of the paper. He thinks about the first time he’d given Louise flowers. Then he’d stood for a good half an hour in the florist's, trying to figure out what she’d like. The clerk had finally taken pity on him and helped him pick out the pink roses. He hadn’t any notion of how to hold them or carry them so, by the time he’d given them to her, they’d been a bit smashed, missing a petal or two. She’d loved them, though, her whole face had lit up when he’d given them to her. She’d told him that no one had ever brought her flowers before and it’d made him want to be the _only_ one to bring her flowers. 

He reaches out and gently runs his fingers along the flowers. They’re delicate and velvety soft. He still wants to be the only one to bring her flowers. So he picks them up and gets out of the car and hopes he’s made the right decision, hopes they’ll make her smile, not cry. 

He finds her at the table in the kitchen, poring over some brochures. “Whatcha looking at?” he says. He’s stalling, he knows, but he’s not quite ready for her reaction to the flowers.

“Oh,” she says, without looking up, “Grace’s mum, you know, Grace Radford, Freya’s mate, her mum was saying something about this new place she’s taking Grace for dance and, of course, Freya’s all excited about it, wanting to go where Grace goes, so her mum got me some--” She lifts up the papers and waves them at him.

“Well,” he says, “Does it seem all right?”

“Seems it, I’ll--” She puts down the papers and looks up. “I’ll have to--” She’s staring at the flowers. “To go check it out, you know?”

“Of course,” he says. He steps forward. She’s still staring at the flowers. “I, uh--” He goes to her side and holds out the flowers. “Got these for you.”

She reaches out and traces one of the roses with her fingertip. “Pink roses.” She doesn’t sound mad. She doesn’t sound quite happy either, but he’ll take what he can get.

“‘Course,” he says, “What else?”

She smiles a little. “Thank you,” she says, “Gareth, they’re lovely.”

“I’m,” he manages, “m’glad you like them.”

She stands up, leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth. “Thank you,” she says and he turns, takes a chance, and kisses her properly. She gasps, but she kisses him back. 

He forgets the flowers and puts his hands on her waist. The flowers crash to the floor between them, but he doesn’t care because she’s letting him pull her closer. The kiss goes on long enough that, when they finally pull apart, he’s a bit breathless. She laughs a little, pats his chest and says, “ _God_ , the flowers, Gareth.”

“Sod the flowers,” he says and moves to tug her closer.

She pushes at him. “No. No, c’mon, let’s see if I can rescue them.”

He lets her go and watches as she fusses over the flowers and gets out a vase. They do look a little worse for wear, but not so bad. She looks back at him, smiles and says, “Reminds me of the first time you got them for me. They looked a bit ragged, did those roses. But, _God_ , how I loved getting them.”

He goes to her and slides his hands along her hips. She leans back into him. “And these,” he says, “Do you, I mean...”

She turns in his arms and kisses him. “Like I said, Gareth, they’re lovely. Thank you.” And he wants to thank her for accepting them, for kissing him, for smiling at him the way she’s smiling at him now. Instead, he kisses her again.

When he pulls back, she smiles and says, “C’mon, sit down and look at those brochures with me.” All he really wants to do is kiss her again, to push her up against the counter, slide his hands up under her shirt and kiss her and kiss her some more. She pushes at his chest. “C’mon, Gareth.”

“Aw, Lou,” he says, resigned to the lack of kissing, “What do I know about dance schools?”

“‘Bout as much as I do. Sit.”

He steps back, sits down with her and looks at endless pictures of smiling girls in tutus. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to be seeing, but he is glad she asked him to look.

***

He spends his days at Carrington, doing his rehab and trying his best to stay out of Joe’s way. It’s easy to do while he’s nowhere near the training pitches. When he starts up on the training pitches, it’s not with the team, not at first.

He does some sessions with one of the new lads, Garcia. His English isn’t bad, better than Silva’s even, who’s had two years of practice. He has an easy way about him, quick with a smile or a laugh. He reminds him a bit of Joe, but he shoves that thought aside and tries, instead, to answer Garcia’s stumbling, half-formed questions about Manchester.

If anyone notices him keeping his distance from Joe, they don’t say anything. Of course, he’s not around the lads as much. 

The seasons starts and he’s not ready to play. He swallows down his disappointment and keeps working as hard as the physios will let him. He itches to ask _when, when, when_ , but he bites his tongue. They’ll tell him. There’s no point trying to rush it. 

He, maybe, whines a bit to Louise, but when he does, she gives him a worried look and says, “Why rush, Gareth? You could--could make it worse and...” She trails off. 

He touches her arm, lightly, in case she wants to shake him off. “I--I won’t, Lou, promise. I, just, I--”

She smiles a little and pats his hand. “You miss it, huh?” 

She’s never understood, he knows, the depth of feeling he has for playing, for football. She doesn’t care for it, football. She’s always understood _him_ , though, understood how much a part of him football is. “Yeah,” he says, “I do. I-- S’been so long since I--since I’ve gone so long without playing and, Lou, what if it’s not--” He stops. He can’t even say the rest of it. 

“If it’s not,” she says, squeezing his hand, “it’s not, Gareth, no point thinking that way. Just, you know, keep at it and we’ll see.”

She’s never one for the pretty little lie, his Louise, but he prefers it that way, likes to hear things straight out. Besides, she’d said _we_ and, now, that’s more important to him than anything else. He can face down anything so long as she’ll do it with him. “Yeah,” he says. He smiles a little. “Still miss it, though.”

“Yeah,” she says, stepping back, out of his hold. “Hard, isn’t it? Missing something that’s always right in front of you?” She’s not talking about football. 

“Lou--”

She shakes her head. “Never mind.” She smiles a little. “You’ll play again, Gareth, and--” She touches his arm, skims her fingers just above his elbow. “We’ll--”

“Yeah?” he says and holds his breath and hopes.

“Yeah,” she says.

***

The end of August comes and he’s already missed two games and will most likely miss more, but he can feel himself getting closer to ready. Then, after a long session on an unexpectedly hot and sticky day, they tell him he’s going to play soon, probably with the kids at first, but before August is over, they say, he’ll play.

It’s like a weight off his shoulders. He feels a bit like he’d felt, all those years ago, after they’d told him he’d be making his first team debut. He can’t stop smiling. He feels a bit foolish but it doesn’t stop him. 

He runs into Joe on his way to his car. There’s no one else about. It’s the first time he’s been alone with him since that day at Joe’s place. He forgets to stop smiling. He still isn’t used to Joe not being a reason for him to smile. 

Joe smiles a little and says, “Hey, Gaz, what’s got you all smiles?”

Once, Gareth knows, Joe would have jostled into him and slung his arm around his shoulders. Now he stays away and that’s right, that’s better, but part of him misses the way it used to be. “I--” he says and then stops. He could tell Joe, but he wants to tell Louise first. He always wants to go straight to her with his good news, his bad news. His first impulse is always to go to her first, to share everything with her. “Nothing,” he says, “Just, you know, going home, you know?”

“Yeah,” Joe says. He’s not smiling anymore. 

“Well,” Gareth says, “See you.”

“‘Kay,” Joe says, “See you.” 

They stand there a moment, staring at each other. He feels like there should be something more to say, something more between them, but there isn’t, not anymore. “Bye then,” he says and turns and goes before Joe can say anything else.

He puts Joe out of his mind on as he drives home, thinks, instead, about seeing Louise, about telling her about playing and, by the time he’s home, he’s smiling again. 

He finds Louise in the kitchen, looking frazzled and scrubbing something red and sticky-looking off the cabinets. “Is that,” he says, tilting his head and staring, “That’s not strawberry jam, is it?”

She huffs. “Yes, Gareth, well spotted. I swear, your bloody kids...” 

They’re always _his bloody kids_ when she’s mad at them. “Where are they, then?”

She scrubs harder. “Sent the lot of them upstairs.”

“Hope,” he says lightly, “that you took the jam away first.” 

She snorts. “‘Course I did.” She finishes scrubbing, drops the sponge in the sink and turns to look at him. “What’re you all smiles about, then? Better not be about the jam, yeah? Or you can go right back out.”

“Nah,” he says, smiling wider, “nothing like that.”

“Well,” she says, smiling a little, “What, then?” 

“Well,” he says, coming closer, edging into her space. He doesn’t reach out for her or touch her, even though he wants to, because he wants to wait and see if she even wants him close to her. He’s never sure anymore, so he lets her lead, lets her tell him when she wants him close. “They’re saying I’m gonna play, Lou, soon, I mean, at first just with the kids, you know? But it’ll be playing, yeah? And soon.”

“Oh,” she says and smiles, wide and bright, “That’s--”

He cuts her off, “And,” because her smiling at him’s even better than getting to play again, “Lou, and, you’re smiling at me so...”

She shoves him and ducks her head. “Oh, come off it, Gareth.”

He carefully, giving her time to back up if she wants, settles his hands on her hips. “M’serious, Lou.”

She looks up. She’s still smiling. “So,” she says with fond exasperation, “That’s all it takes, huh, to make you this happy? Game of footie and a smile from a pretty girl?”

He pulls her a little closer and she lets him. “Nah,” he says and, then, even though it’s stupidly sentimental and she’s probably going to laugh at him, “All it takes is a smile from this pretty girl."

She does laugh, like she always does when he gets too soppy. “Oh, Gareth,” she says, still laughing, “C’mon now, be serious. We both know it’s the footie that’s got you all smiles.”

“Nah,” he says, “just you.”

“Gareth,” she says, “C’mon...”

He kisses her, just once, quick and closemouthed. “Mean it,” he says, “S’long as I’ve got you and the kids, strawberry jam and all, that’s all it takes, Lou, that’s all I need to be happy.” 

She stares at him for a moment, studying him like she’s trying to decide if she believes him. “Okay,” she says, with a hint of a smile, “Gareth, okay.” She leans in and kisses him and he believes, for the first time, that one day she’ll forgive him.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The Barrys have [three children](http://www.mcfc.co.uk/citytv/Features/2011/May/City-v-Stoke-League-Tunnel-cam) (see the end of the video) but I could not find the name of their youngest hence all the references to the baby in the story. 
> 
> 2\. James Milner and Gareth Barry did go [play golf in Spain](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2145241/Gareth-Barry-James-Milner-Volvo-World-Match-Play-Pro-Am.html#axzz2JsWGpyOA) shortly after winning the league. James Milner wore a questionable shirt and, unlike in this story, a good time seemed to be had by all.
> 
> 3\. Gareth Barry was [injured](http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/27/gareth-barry-euro-2012) in May during a friendly game versus Norway. The injury prevented him from going to Euros.
> 
> 4\. The Michael who appears in the story is [Michael Standing](http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-barry-on-why-he-appointed-michael-83177) Gareth's best friend (and agent). Emma is mine, she's from [Still Looking Up](http://archiveofourown.org/works/571349).


End file.
